Northeast Philly college issues challenge: No Facebook for 30 days

Krista Zerkow's wake-up call came in a text message.

Boyfriend Ryan Schriver wrote that he worried about all the time Zerkow was spending on her phone and on Facebook.

The couple exchanged messages - sitting beside each other on the couch.

"I think I'm addicted," said Zerkow, 21, of Philadelphia. "If I didn't have [Facebook], I would feel alienated from the world."

This month, Zerkow is putting her will power to the test.

She is one of 18 students at Holy Family University in Northeast Philadelphia who've volunteered to go cold turkey: no Facebook for 30 days, or as long as they can stand it.

The school's Facebook Challenge flouts nothing less than a global megatrend. More than 500 million users spend 700 billion minutes a month on the site. Soon, the movie about it, The Social Network, could make a friend of Oscar.

"We're not saying Facebook is bad and stay off of it forever," said Andrea Mantilla, 21, a resident assistant who helped organize the Facebook Challenge. "We're asking them to see how it's affecting their lives."

Is the social-networking site just an efficient way to keep in touch with friends? Or has it become a habit with ill effects on schoolwork, relationships, and self-esteem?

Every Monday during February, a support group will meet so students can talk about it.

All 3,500 students enrolled at the main campus, as well as at Bucks County branches in Bensalem and Newtown, were invited to take up the challenge, a joint effort of the college's Counseling Center and Disability Services Office and the Residence Life division. Slightly more than one-half of 1 percent did.

Elsewhere around the country, other student groups have forsworn Facebook. Last year, Harrisburg University of Science and Technology blacked out social-networking sites - but only for a week.

Mantilla and Diana Piperata, director of Holy Family's counseling department, came up with the challenge after Mantilla gave up Facebook three months ago. She likened the Facebook experience to being sucked into the minutiae of other people's lives.

"It gets old," Mantilla said. "And I don't want to turn into that person who constantly updates what they're doing all day."

At the college, Piperata noted an increased incidence of Facebook-related anxiety and depression in students who came in for counseling. Many had lost friendships and severed relationships because of something posted - and often misconstrued, she said.

Zerkow, for instance, got into a "Facebook war" over a misinterpreted comment she posted about her time building houses for Habitat for Humanity. It was resolved only when Zerkow talked, in person, to the woman who took offense at the comment.

In Piperata's caseload, most of the problems that Facebook inflames, if not causes, involve romantic breakups. Students can't get over the loss because they stay connected to the ex by constantly checking the network - a behavior called "creeping."

Also, she said, a student's self-esteem can rise and fall according to how many Facebook friends respond to a status update, and how quickly.

"It's instant affirmation," said Cindy Bienenfeld, a registered nurse and graduate intern in the counseling department. "But if no one responds, there is a sense of rejection."

The results of research on Facebook's effects on users have been mixed, said Charles Steinfield, chairman of the telecommunication, information studies, and media department at Michigan State University. Steinfield and several colleagues annually survey the university's students on their Facebook usage.

"There is no right answer," said Steinfield, coauthor of a 2007 study on college students' use of social-network sites. "It depends on what they're doing on Facebook, how they're doing it, why they're connecting, whether they're active or passive."

The Holy Family challenge is focusing on Facebook - and not other social media - as just the first step, Piperata said. Junior Emily Anick, 28, said she could never participate in the challenge. She checks Facebook every hour, and "I know I couldn't stay off it for 30 days."

Sophomore Matt Reese, 19, sees no need to participate, because he checks Facebook only a couple of times a day for a few minutes each time.

"I don't feel addicted," Reese said. "It's just an easier way to talk to people."

But Ryan O'Driscoll and Elizabeth Lipinski would like to moderate their Facebook use.

"When I thought about it," said O'Driscoll, 19, "Facebook doesn't give me food, money, or air."

So at midnight Sunday, the couple began the Facebook Challenge. O'Driscoll and Lipinski changed each other's Facebook passwords and placed the new ones in sealed envelopes.

"We're testing our will," O'Driscoll said, "to open it or not."