We spend too much time on Facebook. I know it, and you know it; this is not new information. And yet, most of us still log on many, many times each day. I’ve already checked my page since starting this column.

From my perspective, there are two factors that contribute to this addiction.

First, many of us feel that the degree to which Facebook is present in our lives is a given or inevitable if we have an account, although it is not.

Second, although we know we should stop checking Facebook so often, it doesn’t feel imperative.

But, I think we are approaching a level at which it is in fact critical to cut back.

I want to be clear: I am not advocating quitting Facebook altogether. I think it has become an integral part of the way that college students communicate.

But, the amount that we use it has gotten out of hand. It disrupts our ability to focus on academic work, to listen in class and even to be fully present in social situations.

Yes, this is an issue with all social media sites. But, Internet users, on average, spend more time on Facebook than any other website or social media account. Therefore when looking for ways to increase efficiency, you should begin by focusing on cutting back on this site. 

I recently came across a startling statistic, which is that the average Facebook user spends more time every day browsing the website than they do spending time with their pets.  People may even spend more time posting pictures or creating Facebook pages for their pets than they spend taking care of them.

It’s troubling, and quite sad, that the average person prioritizes browsing through a social media site over interacting with a pet, a living being for which the owner is responsible. 

Perhaps even more alarming are the results of the sites that allow you to calculate the amount of time you have cumulatively spent on Facebook since joining. 

I probably spend about forty minutes a day on Facebook, which is around average. This unfortunately means that I’ve spent 64 days, seven hours and five minutes cumulatively on the site since joining six years ago.

While that is absurd, it is obviously not atypical.

Facebook, when used in excess, can heavily detract from students’ academic performance and perhaps even their social lives.

Constantly checking Facebook each hour while working on homework can lengthen the process or lead to an unfinished assignment.

Further, the need to constantly update our Facebook profiles can cause us students to feel distracted and not totally present during time with friends — the real friends, not Facebook ones.

For the sake of preserving these priorities, we need to start logging on fewer times each day.

But for all this, no one should feel ashamed of his or her Facebook addiction. There are psychological reasons why Facebook appeals so strongly to us.

There are many researchers and psychologists today who are interested in that attraction. Funnily, there is even a Facebook group that is devoted to studying the psychology of Facebook.

One of the biggest reasons, according to Psychology Today, that we are so drawn to the site is because it boosts our self-esteem.

We are able to see, in quantitative terms, exactly how many people have liked our profile picture, how many pictures we posted this week, how many friends we have, etc. This usually seems especially important to college age users. This allows us to construct a representation of ourselves however we like, which is an attractive promise.

Although this is a common aspect of most social media sites, because of Facebook’s overwhelming popularity, that specific representation may seem more important to Internet users.

I understand and support the building of a reputable online identity. But the problem is that most of the time that we are on Facebook, we are browsing other profiles rather than building our own. In that way, Facebook can quickly become a breeding ground for unproductiveness.

Students would do better to put the hours spent on Facebook toward building a more concrete, in-person reputation rather than a virtual one.

My own opinion is that a lot of our addiction is simply habit; we are accustomed to taking out our smartphones and checking Facebook first thing.

Although I don’t believe it is feasible for college students to do away with it completely, we should be a little smarter about the amount of time we spend on it.

Take it a step at a time. Log on a few less times each day. Keep reminding yourself that you’re going to be more efficient and happier after you do.

Alex is a junior in LAS. She can be reached at [email protected].