First you log onto your email to see if you got any good online coupons and if your science teacher finally emailed you back. Then you check your Facebook to see who commented on your new profile picture and check the newsfeed to see if there are any new Facebook official relationships. You see a funny video about a girl narrating a book about kittens so you get onto YouTube and search “Funny Videos about Cats” to get a few more laughs. But you almost forgot to check Farmville! Some of your crops could have died! That was a close call. Of course you have to check your Formspring to see if anyone anonymously left a sassy comment about your outfit today or if they thought your new haircut was cute. But you just got a Twitter account so you have check if you have any new followers and tweet about the rude things people said to you on Formspring. But you couldn’t vent enough in the 140 character limit on Twitter so you had to get on your Tumblr and post a new blog to let it all out. And of course, upload the picture of your Winter Formal dress to see if any of your followers like it or not. Before you know it you have been on the internet for four hours and you have no time to do your homework and you missed the school basketball game.

Hello, addiction to social media.

“Facebook pretty much keeps me in the loop with what is going on in people’s lives who I don’t keep up with on a daily basis. If I can’t reach the computer, I get my notifications via text message and email so there is not a moment I am not connected. Yes, I am addicted to social media,” junior Whitney Wright said.

According to http://www.socialnetworkingwatch.com/, there are over 400 million Facebook users, 100 million Facebook mobile users, 79.3 million monthly active Farmville users, 110 millions tweets on Twitter alone per day, 200 million videos watched on YouTube daily, 20 million Formspring users, 6.3 million Tumblr users, and just under 50 million Myspace users.

“I have more than a thousand friends of Facebook and probably keep up with about 50 of them. I only know a few people that don’t have one. It’s where everyone shares their life stories, why not have a Facebook?” sophomore Mollie Bailey said.

The astonishing 93% of teenagers using the internet is only increasing as the months go on. With these statistics only rising it safe to say that our generation has an addiction to social media. And with new social media sites being created every year and more improvements to the already popular sites, we can only get more addicted to what has already gotten us hooked. We are not a generation addicted to our computer screen in front of us or the phone in our hand, but the social networks and media it connects us to.