It is midnight on a Sunday and I am supposed to be completing an assignment that is due tomorrow, but I’m not exactly doing that.

Instead, I am on Facebook searching for new updates and mails, I realize that I do this more often than I choose to, question is have I joined the world in this new addiction.

A request pops up an old friend from high school who wants to join my friend list, ooh that’s okay I have been wondering what she has been up to, let me add her we might just rekindle the friendship we once had.

Let’s face it its not like I am lazy, everybody takes a break from their work; the break could be different person to person. Yeah, most of us go for outings with friends, some talk on phone for hours, others get a bite to eat and then sit down and get back to work.

However, almost half of us probably check Facebook just one more time before we get back to work, one more time before you get out of the office, one more time before you go out for lunch.

We feel this great need to see if that one person wrote on our wall or to check if we were invited to any more events for the weekend. Facebook, basically, has just become the greatest obsession of our time.

It is so easy just to log in and get wrapped up in what’s going on in your own little world and that of your friends across the globe. You may find yourself looking at profiles of people you haven’t spoken to since primary school, but yet you still know their life story.

News feed informs you what they are all up to their status updates lets you know what they are doing every minute. Profile changes get you informed on who is married, divorced, in complicated relationship or just single.

So if you are wondering if the guy you just met is going out or not facebook will answer that question in an instant. Talk about technology genius.

We are all under the spell of a new phenomenon Facebook. The majority of us have Facebook accounts, "I signed onto Facebook in 2004, and when I began, I thought it was just another silly site that I would eventually stop visiting: Well, I was wrong. I have grown to love the network I love chatting with friends checking out their profiles and so on” says Olivier Kasumba.

He like many of us has fallen prey to this new network. He says that he finds it so hard to balance work and facebook chats. He is not caught up alone Joy Kabwezi is a mother of one she says that she has had to buy a modem so as to connect to facebook when she is at home.

Joy explains "My husband and I are always arguing over who goes online first, we both love to log on to facebook.”

So, bottom line, Facebook is a created mini-world inside our own world that provides you with information about the most random people in our lives.

Facebook is a forum that everyone is on a common ground despite where you are from rich or poor we all get the same interface to interact.

Some people have gone over the top and become facebook stalkers who spend time following peoples lives, Leaving un ending comments on peoples wall which is quite offensive.

I also know that most of you are Facebook have become facebook die hands those of you who have gone to an extent of having facebook on your phones.

But this is okay because it is part of being the social being we are meant to me but time comes when even a great leisure time activity becomes an addiction. This is an addiction we can easily fall prey to and hence we have to watch out.

History of facebook

Facebook was started by Mark Zuckerberg, a 23 year old Harvard university student, at the time Zuckerberg was studying psychology at the university.

Being a keen programmer he had already developed several networking websites for his fellow collage mates which include Course match, which allowed users to view people taking their degree, and Facemash, where you could rate people’s attractiveness.

In the beginning of 2004 Zuckerberg launched the then called "The facebook”, The name was taken from the sheets of paper distributed to first year student to help them in getting to know people around campus, The sheets included staff and student profiles.

Within 24 hours over a thousand students had signed up, and after one month, over half of the campus population had joined the network. The network later extended to Yale University and eventually to all US universities. Later in 2005 it became Facebook.com it was right around then that it began to spread worldwide.

As of September 2006, the network was extended anyone with a registered email address. The site remains free to join, and makes a profit through advertising revenue.

Rumor has it that Yahoo and Google are among companies which have expressed interest in buying this multi billion network; however Mr Zuckerberg has so far refused to sell.

The site’s features have continued to develop during 2007. Users can now give gifts to friends, post free classified advertisements and even develop their own applications.

This month the company announced that the number of registered users had reached 150 million. People around the world are now actively using Facebook.Today, people of all ages—grandparents, parents and children—use Facebook in more than 35 different languages and 170 countries and territories.

The full potential of the web is to make the world more open, so everyone has a voice and can share what is important to them.

Email pgathoni@gmail.com