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Everybody goes through stages. Whether it be wetting the bed, hearing their voice crack through puberty, secretly reading Harry Potter, or getting addicted to Facebook, one thing’s for sure: most of us have been there. Or, we all know a friend, right?

In this post, we’ll focus on a stage that many people are stuck in, being addicted to Facebook. Amidst all the wall posts, messages, notifications and pokes, sits an endless supply of fun. And with fun also comes a large amount of time spent on Facebook.

CNN reports, “Although there are no statistics on “Facebook addiction” — it isn’t an actual medical diagnosis — therapists say they’re seeing more and more people like Newton who’ve crossed the line from social networking to social dysfunction.

“Last Friday, I had three clients in my office with Facebook problems,” said Paula Pile, a marriage and family therapist in Greensboro, North Carolina. “It’s turned into a compulsion — a compulsion to dissociate from your real world and go live in the Facebook world.”

Obviously, Facebook isn’t entirely bad. Like everything, it’s all about balance. Yet, how does one break away when they’re addicted?

Well, first, you must come to grips with reality on your Facebook addiction. How so? Well, for starters, you might want to begin by comparing yourself to these signs that you’re addicted to Facebook.

If you’re like many people, and you are indeed addicted to Facebook, there are two ways to kick your Facebook addiction. First, you can quit cold turkey. This is the advice you hear from most when you explain your Facebook addiction. “Just quit,” they tell you. But what if you can’t? Well, good news. There are 7 surprising ways that you can kick your Facebook addiction. And it revolves around adding more to Facebook.

7 Surprising Ways to Kick Your Facebook Addiction:

1) Zoho Facebook App

First, you can head over and pick up the Zoho Facebook App. If you don’t already know, Zoho allows you to create, edit and store documents online. Now, with their Facebook App, you can store it online, as well as send documents to your Facebook friends! You can get the Zoho Facebook App here

2) To-do List

Do you love to-do lists? By getting a to-do list Facebook app, you can constantly be reminded about all the things you’ve got to do! Thus, your Facebook addiction will get mitigated for the time being. SharedToDoLists offers this by allowing you to create and share your to-do lists with your Facebook friends. Check it out, have fun, and make sure your friends know that you want to be accountable.

3) Do Homework Through Facebook

Instead of filling your Facebook experience with pokes and wall posts, fill it with homework applications! With the Documents Facebook app, you can store files, docs and notes with your friends.

4) Put Your Calendar on Facebook

Have you ever missed an important appointment because you were surfing Facebook? Don’t worry, there are two apps that will save you. The first is called 30 Boxes, which will allow you to store, save and update your calendar through Facebook. You can create your calendar with 30 Boxes here.

Don’t want to adopt a whole new calendar program? No problem. If so, then pick up this app that allows you to view your Google Calendar within Facebook.

5) Edit Photos

If you’re more of a creative person, and need to edit photos, make your Facebook time more productive and less addicting by picking up the Picnkik app. The Picnik app allows you to edit, save and share photos on the fly!

6) Share Productive News

Want to share productive articles with your friend via Facebook through RSS? Pick up the Google Reader app. Remember: only share productive articles and stories!

7) Put Your Goals in Your Facebook Layout

Last, but not least, I’ve found it very helpful to use a unique Facebook app that allows you to customize the background of your facebook page. That’s obviously a huge part of this blog (customizing and experimenting with Facebook’s platform), but I’ve found it to be really helpful in getting more productive with Facebook. How? It’s helpful to post your goals, dreams and passion to the background of your Facebook profile.

You can do this by first download the Facebook Layout software here.

After this, head over to the Create Your Own Layout tool, and then apply a background that houses your goals on Facebook.

It’s neat because it reminds you of what your goals are and what your dreams are.

Summary

Hopefully those 7 tips above will help you kick your Facebook addiction. I’ve found that there’s really two ways to kick your addiction: first, you can quit cold turkey, or second, you can add more productivity to your Facebook experience. Hopefully one of the apps above will help you in your Facebook addiction stage. As we know, we’ve all been there.

Get the Free Facebook Layout Download Here

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The Age of Awkwardness and Privacy

Just as companies go through awkward stages of growth, so too can communities, users and consumers.

That’s the stage we’re in within the realm of social networking. Do we use Twitter primarily, or Facebook primarily? Most settle for both. Do we make our Facebook privacy 100% private? We’re torn.

It looks as if, no matter what you decide, Facebook is becoming more and more public with every new feature, announcement and concept. Thus, whatever you decide, there are going to be a lot more people “Twitter-izing their Facebook experience.”

Facebook Has a Boring Layout

You know you’ve taken a good, hard look at Facebook by using one measurable metric: yawning. Yes, Facebook can be bland and boring. The font is extremely small, the colors are blue and white and the arrangement is routinely micromanaged and re-arranged so that users will become outraged for a bit, until they realize yet again that they have little say in what Facebook does. Only the thousands of programmers do–and even they’re bored (Diaspora). Add the never-ending spam flow of Farmville into the equation and you’ve pretty much captured the awkward stage of Facebook.

Plus, the problem we all face with Facebook (no pun intended), as well as the other networks, is that they’re silo’d into their respective networks. If you use the web services by default, you can only see your followers in Twitter, and your Facebook friends within Facebook.

If you’re like me, and enjoy the openness and “feel” of Twitter; yet don’t want to leave your Facebook friends behind, this guide will serve you well. I’m going to outline a set of ways that will allow you to “Twitter-ize” your Facebook experience. This will combine some apps that aggregate tweets, as well as apps that literally allow you to customize the look and feel of Facebook by adding backgrounds and layouts to your experience, (which is the main topic of this blog).

Enough of the chit-chat. Let’s get started:

4 Ways to Twitter-ize Your Facebook Experience

1) Step One: Go Public

Yes, we are in the midst of a contested time in the web. Does privacy exist? Well, according to Mark Zuckerberg a couple weeks back, no. Yet, there’s a group of nerds in New York who are proposing that yes, privacy does still exist on the internet. But will the casual user be able to actual adopt their product? I think not, yet time will only tell. Whatever your view, it really doesn’t matter if you’re aiming to Twitter-ize your Facebook profile. And the reason is because Twitter is completely open.

So step number one with Twitter-izing your Facebook’s Profile Page is to make your profile 100% public.

Think real hard before doing this. If you truly want to Twitter-ize your Facebook Page, you have your choice. If you prefer to keep some things private (like me), keep your settings as they are.

If you decide to go public, follow these steps:

Log in to Facebook
Under “Account” (in the top right) click the Privacy Settings
Then click “Personal Information and Posts”
In the right column, you’ll see drop-down options for specific elements within Facebook. Twitter is 100% public; thus, you’ll want to set these to “Everyone”

2) Step Two: Pick up Some Twitteriffic Facebook Apps

The first app you’ll need to add is Twitter’s official Facebook app. You can find it here: http://apps.facebook.com/twitter/ This allows you to connect your Tweets to Facebook so that whenever you Tweet, your friends will see it within Facebook, as well.

If you’re a bit more unconventional, you can try this app called Tweeter, which includes a variety of other features that power-users would prefer.

There’s also Tweetsync, which allows you to sync all of your tweets and status updates; it also carries some advanced features with it.

And the last app you’ll want to pick up, especially if you’re a Fan Page owner, is Involver, which provides you with all of the above features, as well as providing support for Fan Pages.

3) Step Three: Make Your Short Bio Represent Twitter’s Length (140 Characters)

We all know Twitter revolves around short, brief status updates. Your goal should be to liken your updates and profile to that of Twitter. Short, cute and sweet. Love comes in small packages–and Twitter represents that with its cute layout, whereas Facebook’s layout isn’t cute. Thus, I’ll show you how you can fix that.

First, go to your Twitter profile, and select the text within your bio. Copy that text and then navigate over to your Facebook profile.

Under your profile pic you’ll find an area to change your bio. Change it, updated it and link it to your Facebook profile.

4) Step Four: Get a Twitter Background on Your Facebook Profile

You can get a Facebook Layout with Twitter’s background color and style using PageRage’s Create Your Own Layout Tool.

First, you must download PageRage’s plugin, which you can find by clicking here.

The second thing you’ll need to do is find the Twitter background that you want on your Facebook profile. In order to do this, you have two options:

You can use your current customized Twitter Background by saving it to you computer.
You can browse over to Twitter’s standard backgrounds by clicking, “Settings” and then “Design.” Once you’re there, select a background that you’d like to apply to your Facebook profile. After this, right-click the background and select “View Background Image” and then save it.

Now that you’ve got the Facebook Layouts plugin (found here), scroll over to the Create Your Own Layout Tool.

Within the tool, follow the steps and upload your saved Twitter background to your Facebook profile. You can fade in the title bar, select various elements, and change things according to your preference.

After this, it will apply your layout to your Facebook background and you’ll be all set. Again, you need to grab the plugin before you can do this, which can be found at the bottom and top of this post.

Conclusion

That’s it! It’s really quite simple to Twitter-ize your Facebook Layout. Have fun with it, add some flair, and remember to tell your friends if you’d like them to follow in your footsteps.

Best of luck, and tweet on!

If you have any suggestions, ideas or any other apps, please feel free to let me know in the comments section below.

Photo Credits:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/entressenkirjasto/ / CC BY 2.0

Get the Free Facebook Layout Download Here

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Backgrounds

7 Surprising Ways to Kick Your Facebook Addiction