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"There's no doubt that for many of us, Facebook consumes a goodly proportion of our time; on average, we spend 5 percent of our time online. For some teenagers, time spent on the 350 million-strong social network has gone beyond time spent and into time sunk. It's prompted a spate of young users to devise ways of cutting down, taking breaks or simply deactivating their accounts altogether, according to The New York Times. \nSome are even banding together to provide social support for curtailing the Facebook obsession. Two teens at San Francisco University High School, Hally Lamberson and Monica Reed, made a pact to only log in on the first Saturday of every month. Ann Arbor, Michigan, sophomore Neeka Salmasi enlisted her sister to change her Facebook password for her every Sunday evening and not give the new credentials back to her until the following Friday.\nOther strategies include giving up Facebook for Lent, \"punishing\" Facebook usage breaches with embarrassing Wall messages, deactivating an account temporarily or going cold turkey for the entire senior year after Facebook proved too distracting during college applications. Psychology professionals and school administrators alike acknowledge that usage of the social network can all too easily reach problematic levels of distraction. Dr. Kimberly Young, director of the Center for Internet Addiction Recovery, said she's worked with dozens of teens trying to break the habit: \u201CIt\u2019s like any other addiction... it\u2019s hard to wean yourself.\"\nAuthor and teacher Rachel Simmons credits the new Facebook Live Feed format with exacerbating an already addictive online medium: \"You\u2019re getting a feed of everything everyone is doing and saying. You\u2019re literally watching the social landscape on the screen, and if you\u2019re obsessed with your position in that landscape, it\u2019s very hard to look away.\"\nDo you or someone you know have a preferred strategy for limiting the time you spend on Facebook? Do the parents out there have any guidelines they use to help teens maintain a healthy relationship with their online networks?  \n[via eSchoolNews]"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2009/12/21/teens-cutting-down-on-facebook/>