One of Facebook's draws is that it allows you to be a real life spy. Once you sign up and collect some friends, you can constantly follow their lives at the push of a button. The more people you know and find, the more time you can spend tracking their every movement. Of course, such tracking comes at a cost.
Every human is bound by the constraints of time. Using any resource requires skill, and with practice, many get better at it. Time is just another resource, one that requires some thought in order to use wisely. Facebook costs people a great amount of time. Almost every person has some kind of goal they are going after in life. Many have dreams of doing something with their lives. Something that is seen as special or that makes them more unique. However, with Facebook, a person can, for a while, feel unique or different. However, saying something on a computer does not mean that something is necessarily true. And people tend to exaggerate on the internet. Why? It is very hard to prove something is not necessarily 100% true when you are not anywhere near that person.
Such bragging comes at a cost, and it's a cost that every Facebook member shares in. We feel like trash when we log out. We feel that our lives are somewhat of a failure. If one of our hundreds of friends does something that we wish we did, it is easily to feel down in the dumps. And with hundreds of friends the chances of one living an envious life is high. Even if they are not truly living an envious life. The truth is, nobody seems to want to say anything negative about themselves or their perfect lives on Facebook. Lives that are full of vacations, achievements, and endless good choices. We see our lives as being both good and bad, but few people would share the bad on Facebook. When we compare our lives, the good, and the bad, with what we see on the internet, we invariably feel that we have somehow failed.

For example, a recent article, entitled "Is a Facebook 'like' too much information" stated:
"Researchers got more than 58,000 volunteers who use Facebook to take a psychological and intelligence test and share all their profile information and likes. Then they ran some complicated algorithms and checked how likes correlated with what they knew about users (from their profiles, pictures, the tests, etc.)."While such testing is in the early stages, the reality is that people share way too much information on the internet. Recently, while talking to a family member, I was told that many people she knew do not want to get a passport because they believe the government can track such things. Yet, these same people all have cell phones and Facebook accounts. Even conspiracy theorists can't stay away from the site!
Is the want to check up on the lives of everyone you know or once knew worth the cost? We oftentimes do not think about what something will cost us when we do it. Sometimes something seems harmless, but over time it can do great damage to our lives. Facebook use does cause damage in people's lives. It's not just a harmless pastime, and society is starting to realize that. But, is it too late? Are people too addicted to the site? Are you?