It has to be true.

The article called 10 Signs You Might Be Addicted To Facebook says so. I found it on my feed … on Facebook.

Pretty sure the addiction started in January of 2011 … when a friend from way back popped up on the Instant Message feature … “Hi. Remember me?” But that’s another story.

I had signed up for Facebook a few years earlier. To see pictures of kids and grandkids. And maybe see what a few friends had to say.

I kept it up in the background at work. In case my partner at the time needed to get in touch and didn’t want to be constantly calling on the phone.

Innocent enough.

But the addiction started with the innocent message … that grew to constant chats … which I imagine entertained the staff at Facebook Headquarters if they were eavesdropping … and has grown over the years.

I even was dumped via a one-paragraph Facebook message. Private, of course.

So how does it go again? Hi. I’m Holly and I’m addicted to Facebook. Step One … I am powerless over the Facebook feed and its links … and my life has become unmanageable.

A friend recently called it “The Ultimate Ohh, Shiny Distraction Machine.” An apt description if I ever heard one.

After my soul-crushing heartbreak, I set up a smaller more real Facebook account. For supportive friends and family only. It started with ten people … one of whom had passed away since I set this up years ago. It now has forty folks … including three that are not really friends … three family members … four that don’t really use Facebook … and the dead one.

In reality it is mostly limited to about a dozen “real” active people … a few of whom I’ve never even met in person.

My big Facebook account has relatives, acquaintances, people who wanted to be friends that I really didn’t want but accepted anyway. And the little Facebook account … that’s the one I really use.

It allows me to say … to a very, very select audience … whatever I want to say. Things that would offend most folks on the larger account. And things I don’t want the world to know.

However.

I now find myself getting more than a little carried away. Not only with one-on-one chats, which I adore … but also with laughter over things that make be laugh out loud.

Jewish figures rendered in pork? Seriously? Have to share that after all.

And then there is outrage over social injustice. And the reporting or lack thereof. And the various videos saying far better than I ever could what is happening that needs to be highlighted and changed in the world.

Share, share and share.

How to Love a Strong and Complicated Woman? Perfect. Certainly need to let my friends know how that will come in handy for me as I hit the ground running in the dating world next year. A handout maybe even. Never one to waste effort here. No siree.

Doing a shift up at the radio station? Well of course they will want to know that. How could they not?

Cute kitten doing cute kitten things? No. Too pat.

Except the cat/batman one. That one needs shared.

But then, that one about dogs might appeal to my dog-loving friends so … share that too.

I seem to comment a lot about coffee and sarcasm. No clue why that should play a consistent recurring theme in my posts.

No clue at all.

And then there is … Well, you get the picture. And if you don’t, trust me my friends on Facebook do … pictures and videos and comments and likes and shares and messages and posts and … 

It’s getting out of hand.

Maybe I should cut down a bit.

OK. Let me publish this blog post.

And go make sure it is out there on my Facebook feed.