The Facebook Blues - What Happens to Facebook When People Run Out of Things to Say?

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Aren’t We All Suffering From 'Facebook Depression?'

So once we become a member of Facebook and achieve immortality as a viral digit what happens when we finally run out of things to say?  It sounds like a good question to me.  I've been on Facebook several years and watched a lot of people come and go although the digital world is reluctant to let go of you long after you cease to be a member.

You see those mythical clicks still generate money for the social media types and it never really mattered whether you read the advert, clicked through the adverts, withdrew from membership, or even died.  For some strange reason they expect you to notify them in the event of your death and then they may carry a tribute page for you until you return from the grave to cut it off.

Yet there is also the problem of what to do when you do run out of things to say.  I must say I thought it was impossible for some people to run out of words.  It was as if they had a bionic mind attached to bionic fingers pounding out an endless stream of sense and nonsense on social media.

However, as I tracked them over time I noticed there was an obvious sequence of steps that indicated they were slipping into a stage of intellectual constipation, followed by a bout with subject drought, each step bringing shorter and shorter messages.  Soon Tweets replace talks and life was limited to 140 characters, minus the length of your username.

Soon they were posting automatic e-birthday greetings and calling it a digital-days work.  By now, the kids were grown, details on every possible disease were painstakingly provided, they described numerous physical calamities, and by now their story was becoming boring even to themselves.  The addiction was complete but the withdrawal was a distant pipedream.

Now that is a problem.  So, they entered the Freudian stage of self-analysis and concluded that they very well might be the most boring person they knew.  Self-awareness leads directly to writers block as one debates the cause of their condition and realizes it all is a direct result of being mentally abused as a child or being a lifelong Democrat.

Either way they now turn their attention to finding a lawyer and deciding whether to sue their parents, school, siblings, or political procrastinators on television for their woes.  Then they have to decide whether to make it a class action suit on behalf of their siblings, or extend it to everyone in the entire digital world.

Unfortunately, a class action in the digital world might be hard to pull off when there are 597 million Americans on Facebook, and only 310 million Americans alive.  Obama never mentioned we could have 287 million illegal digital immigrants, or illegal aliens as Republicans like to say.

Anyway, we are reaching the point where we desperately need help for the virtual captive, digital addict, and Facebook fool.  There is always intervention, or group therapy, private counseling,  or prescription drugs.  You see, unlike illegal drugs, prescription (legal) drugs contribute to the economy and if you get enough prescriptions you are bound to find one that works.

Today the news media said that 50% of all people given legally prescribed addictive narcotic painkillers for a 30 day period are still using them three years later.

 

The painkillers in question "include things like codeine, morphine, and brand names like Percocet and Vicodin,"

"Now more people die from overdose of these prescription drugs than from cocaine and heroin overdose combined."

About 1 in 3 people taking prescription painkillers were also on some type of anti-anxiety or muscle relaxant prescription, according to the report, "A Nation in Pain," which was produced by Express Scripts.

The report found that among patients using opioids on a long-term basis, 30 percent had also filled a prescription for benzodiazepines, short-acting anti-anxiety drugs such as Xanax (alprazolam) and Ativan (lorazepam).

Nearly 30 percent of patients who took opioids also had a prescription for muscle relaxants. Approximately 8 percent of patients were taking all three medications at the same time.

Since the combination of these drugs can be lethal, meaning it kills you dead, then about 60% of people taking legal prescription narcotic painkillers are clearly suicidal since they should know the risk.

According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the U.S. accounts for only 5 percent of the world's population, yet as a country we consume at least 75 percent of all opioid prescription drugs - including 99 percent of the world's hydrocodone, the opiate that is in Vicodin.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently reported that overdose deaths from these drugs quadrupled from 1999 to 2010.

Experts say most of those prescriptions are unnecessary. The United States makes up only 4.6 percent of the world's population, but consumes 80 percent of its opioids -- and 99 percent of the world's hydrocodone, the opiate that is in Vicodin.

Who is prescribing all that Vicodin? More than 600,000 doctors, from surgeons to podiatrists, are licensed by the Durg Enforcement Agency to prescribe the drug. At the top of the list of pain relief prescribers are primary care doctors, followed by internists and then dentists. According to many critics, doctors often prescribe Vicodin because it is not as tightly regulated as other narcotic pain relievers are, although it is just as dangerous.

Now just who are your friends?

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