The Facebook addiction
Young people are attracted to and love to explore the new.
Social networks provide almost everything to satisfy
youngsters’ curiosity to explore; ranging from chatting to
blogging, uploading and exchange of videos and sound
files, wall posts, online games, to sharing pictures etc. In
Africa, Facebook is hugely popular. According to www.
internetworldstats.com the number of users by June 2012
stood at over 43 million. The use of Facebook in Africa is
only rivaled by Twitter and YouTube and in South Africa,
by MXit. The immense popularity of According to Sule
(2011) Facebook has led to the emergence of African
Facebook freaks—youths who spend almost the whole day
‘Facebooking’ via mobile or computer. Sule states that,
‘these Facebook- freaks have carved for themselves a
world of fantasy and illusion far detached from reality’ (1).
According to Oyewale (2012) it is now not uncommon to
see ‘numerous youths clinging passionately to their communications
gadgets, some laughing, while some have a
business- like look on their face’(1). Here, Oyewale
describes typical scenes seen daily on the streets of Lagos—
one of Africa’s most densely populated cities to
illustrate the huge spread of the use of Facebook in Nigeria.