One day recently, Cynthia Newton's 12-year-old daughter asked her for help with homework, but Newton didn't want to help her, because she was too busy on Facebook. So her daughter went upstairs to her room and sent an e-mail asking her for help, but Newton didn't see the e-mail, because, well, she was too busy on Facebook.
"I'm an addict. I just get lost in Facebook," Newton said. "My daughter gets so PO'd at me, and really it is kind of pathetic. It's not something I'm particularly proud of. I just get so sucked in."
Newton (that's not her real name; she's embarrassed by her Facebook use and requested anonymity) says she spends about 20 hours a week on the social networking site, half the time for work -- she runs an online business -- and half just for fun. She's tried to cut down on her Facebook use but failed.
"I can go a whole day without Facebook," she said. "But I've never made it through an entire weekend."
Although there are no statistics on "Facebook addiction" -- it isn't an actual medical diagnosis -- therapists say they're seeing more and more people like Newton who've crossed the line from social networking to social dysfunction.
"Last Friday, I had three clients in my office with Facebook problems," said Paula Pile, a marriage and family therapist in Greensboro, North Carolina. "It's turned into a compulsion -- a compulsion to dissociate from your real world and go live in the Facebook world."
So how do you know when your Facebook use has turned into a compulsion? You can take Pile's "Facebook Compulsion Inventory" to find out.
Pile and the other therapists interviewed for this article were quick to say that Facebook itself isn't the problem and that the vast majority of its 200 million users probably function just fine.
"I'm on it myself," Pile said. "My daughter just got married, and I got great happiness posting her wedding pictures for all my friends to see."
She says problems arise when users ignore family and work obligations because they find the Facebook world a more enjoyable place to spend time than the real world.
Newton says she checks Facebook first thing when she wakes up, and then she checks her Facebook page as many as seven times while at work, and then she'll check Facebook again when she gets home and one more time before she goes to sleep. If you've been keeping count, that's about 10 times a day.
A single parent, Newton includes "Facebook flirting" with men and meeting up with old schoolmates among her favorite activities
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