Critical Evaluation Of Brand Strategy Of VGI

Critical Evaluation Of Brand Strategy Of VGI Abstract This report is a depiction of the brand strategy adopted by an automobile company Volkswagen. This primarily covers the brand management by the company including the critical evaluation of the brand strategy adopted with context to its brand value, brand image and brand positioning. The report provides the reader to have critical analysis of the brand management and at the end of the report a conclusion is drawn on the basis of analysis in the body of the report. In main part of the report there is VIP analysis followed Boston matrix and product life cycle for the detailed explanation of topic. Various brand strategies adopted by the company are also touched in this part of the report. The conclusion is followed by some suitable recommendation of the brand strategy management of the company. Introduction Branding The concept of branding in market is related to the production of brand and in the views of Hankinson Cowking (1993) that branding is tagline that used to differentiate product from other competitors in market. Branding is defined as identity of a specific product, service or business. A brand can take many forms, including a name, sign, symbol or slogan. The world brand began simply as a way to tell one persons cattle from another by means of a hot iron stamp. The word brand began has continued to evolve to encompass identity- in effect the personality of o product, company or service. In the views of Johnson and Scholes (2002, pp. 140) branding is an important feature for saturated market and for the slow growing markets. The brand provides recognition and allows adding value, image and position to the company. An effective brand strategy is very useful for the survival and future growth of company. Branding is used to promote the products of the company in an easier and effective way. It builds up identity and for communicating the story of brand as in India the concept of storytelling is popular tool for advertising. Importance of Branding The branding is the face of the product that company offers to its customers hence every company has to toss their branding strategy effectively. Since this is beneficial in making the impression of product or services in the mind of customers. An effective and impressive brand name always attracts the customers and keeps the position and image of the company in their minds. This even gains to make the customers think and moved towards the use of another product of same company to which they are not familiar. A good quality brand image in business matters a lot; the brand of the company is always seen as in differential part of the company which shows its value and quality. With an effective and strong brand the image of the company goes rise. Strong brand of business facilitate other brands to link with each other different products of the company. The brand name of company used for the different products of the company for effective selling in market. (Source Hankinson Cowking, 1997 pp- 156) Company Introduction VOLKSWAGEN DAS AUTOS The automobile company is well known for its services and higher satisfaction among their customers. Volkswagen group of India is subsidiary of worldwide famous Volkswagen AG. It switches to brand of Volkswagen in addition to two other existed brands of Skoda and Audi in Indian market. These brands possess its own character manoeuvres in an autonomous manner. The establishment of this subsidiary was in year 2007. In Indian autos market the brand image is featured by the size of vehicle, technologies of driving and different features like ABS, EPS and air bags and galvanized bodies of automobiles. Multi branding v/s Corporate Branding There are two main concepts taken corporate branding and multi branding that are explained as followed by the company: Multi Branding: Concept of multi branding in the company mainly based on the objective to become most innovative manufactured volume complies with best quality product specifically considering medium to long term classless. With theme and slogan Vorsprungdurch Technik of Audi brand in considered as solid brand in automotive premium segment. In addition brand of Skoda is a combination of intelligent concepts in using space and technical innovation also covering the design and good money value (Kapfere, 2009, pp 276). Corporate Branding: Volkswagen carries three main brands by having messages of responsible innovation and providing Enduring Value. The car under the corporate brand there is passenger cars convey reliability and quality and engineering of German skills at the global level. This facilitate in becoming the first choice in millions of the customers when buying a car. Critical Evaluation of Brand Strategy of VGI In the views of Porter (1993), for successful administration of a company there must be an identified strategy that itself serve as a position and must be able to handle competition through brand strategy of the company and is primarily differentiate into three parts as. Cost leadership strategy, differentiation strategy and focus strategy. Brand strategy of Volkswagen is well maintained. As India is important market for the strategic marketing especially in automotive industry. There are good opportunities for future growth as a result of outstanding conditions of demands. But the noticeable condition is that there is very high competition full with challenges of conditions of market, different lifestyle, and behaviour of consumers. Branding is key success factor for Volkswagen in order to gain good market position and competitive advantages therefore it become very successful in the Indian Automobiles of market. As branding plays a vital part for the Volkswagen and make it differentiate from other competitors in market. Kotler has viewed his comment on the leadership that a cost leadership is not possible, differentiate is their competitive strategy (Kotler, 2008, p.468). Also Varey considered brand as unique and for selling the proposition in the emerging markets. Branding Value of Volkswagen The brand value is an important aspect of a brand. This can be illustrate as the customers are usually willing to spent or pay more for that product that is related to any known brand, they preferred brand that the product. The brand value is hence defined as that extra money made by a company or can be made from the selling of its products in solely way only due to the name of its brand. For example For Volkswagen group India there is late entry of the Volkswagen group of India in the market as compared to other competitor rivals. Due to this company has lack to gain the first mover advantage in market and hence less gain in the brand value. For further development the company in order to strengthen its brand value it follow the strategy by making corporate statement innovation for everyone. While marketing any product, importantly in India, the most crucial factor is quality and price of product as India is at a halt a poor country. Brand Image for Volkswagen Brand image is specified as those qualities which are related to the association to customers with the particular brand. It is expressed as the human behaviour and their wants and desires, but not enough it also associates with the situational use, price and quality of the brand. Here example can be taken as the Mercedes Benz which possesses a string brand image due to its product quality and features and their price, this came to make an image of brand in the minds of customers about that particular product. The brand image is not an inherent character for a company brand though this can be achieved through the advertising and campaigns. Brand image is identity of the product in market and is a symbol of the company that make its impression and image in the minds of customers. The Volkswagen with its new brand name Das Auto along with its vision, the company is going to create new image by surrounding proximity and convenience via affordable innovations. The Volkswagens brands of Skoda and Audi managed in such a way that curved their position in stiff ad competitive automobile market and creating their baton of brand image in consciously sensitive markets like India. Brand Positioning In the view of Armstrong (2002), brand positioning zeroes in on customers and gives them a reason to buy a product in preference to others; it differentiates a product from other products based on attributes. Walter (1997) also states that position of brand is perception among target customers. The Volkswagen group of India as came back into market after the period of ten years it has going to position its brand again in the minds of their customers and in market. The company has positioned its brand bracketed to set of above middle classed customers whose income is above average and have the thrill to show off as and where compared to brand Audi which is expensive and very showing type is designed for those types of consumers that are sporty and want to show off more with expensive expenditure. On contrary the Volkswagen brand is suitable for the average persons and also full the desire to show off. The company has managed them with a separate position in market. According to a stat ement given by the director of VW passengers cars Mr. Neeraj Garg that the company will take some time for making its position and there is a slow process to gain position into the minds of customers of India. Segmentation In India most driving factor is recognised affordability, due to this the market of domestic cars is segmented on to accordance with their prices. There is price based competition in Indian market therefore the car is segmented as below: Multi Segmentation Geographical segmentation Demographical segmentation Social Class Marketing Strategy Marketing Strategy adopted by Volkswagen brand after its launch in India in 2007 in relation to marketing Mix Marketing Mix Marketing mix of Volkswagen Brand Source: Kotler, P Armstrong, G (2004) For brand strategy of Volkswagen there is involvement of first P according to marketing mix is Product as described in model. The product in this model is defined as that combination of services and goods sell to the customers by the company or organisation in target market (Armstrong Kotler, 2005). From analysis it is found that product is also a part of Brand name. Design and quality are the main product features that possess variety in them. Here an example can be quoted for a brand of Volkswagen Touareg that has been sold in India comprises of a package of seating, engine, breaks and engine etc. (Volkswagen India, 2009). Hence for product strategy the company is equipped with variety and design in their products including warrant for them which in turn results in good response from the customers and make them satisfied and bring loyalty in them. The second P in this model if marketing mix is price. Price is of a product or service is defined as that amount which is paid by customer to the organisation or company for buying their products or services offered to them (Armstrong Kotler, 2005). While discussing the price strategy it has been found that there are 61 dealership offers high prices for the products to sell in India as compared to their rivals like Honda city and Ford, but there is variation that the company charge interest rate by 4.5 5.0 % instead of other rivals make with 8% or more as a loans given by banks or building societies of other rival car makers. This facility is attributed by the Volkswagen financial Services that aided to support the sales of the company to their customers. There is next P for the marketing mix is Place that is also very crucial in Brand management. The place usually referred to that place where there is availability of products of company to their customers. As in concerned to Volkswagen the company involved in using dealers and distributors for the purpose of the sales of their products. There are two modes for the dealers to get authorised either through franchised or direct ownership of company. For the company their network related to their dealers is very important and is maintained in a proper way because the product of the company are introduced through them to the customers, hence it is very important. In the views of Kotler 2005 the company usually share their losses and profits both with their dealers for purpose to maintain the quality of cost leadership. At present the Volkswagen has fine relationship with their dealers in India and also involve in the dealing of their products with Skoda with 61 leaders (Top News, 2010). The last and fourth one P is Promotion. The promotion has variance in their objectives that has to be achieved in market. The promotion is usually handled with the tool of advertisement. The promotions for customers are added through the advertisement that results in the excitement among them. The aim of promotion is to pull in target consumers. These promotions are based on the scheme of non profit but in turn results in the profit for the company (Bradley, 1993). For example the Volkswagen Company in year 2009 has launched a promotion named Pre Monsoon campaign published by Motor beam, 2009. This promotion is for the purpose to establish the brand of company India. In India the company offered a variety of range of services to their customers and fro this company is getting profit from the promotions of the company brand. Pricing strategy Pricing strategy of Volkswagen: In the vies of Lowe and Doole (et al 2006), for any company at the initial stage of launch in market introduced with two adopted strategies for pricing, one is marketing skimming price strategy and other one is market penetration pricing. The company Volkswagen has choose the strategy of market penetration pricing. In this strategy previously the prices were set high so that there can be coverage of initial investment this is so because the company had invested a lot of money in the business to set up the unit in Pune, Maharastra. Ansoff Growth Matrix Model for Strategy Source: Kotler, P Armstrong, G (2004) For further analysis there is discussion in accordance with the given model of Ansoff Growth Matrix for Volkswagen. This model usually depicts the different areas of market development of the product of the company. This development is in relation with company and that aspect that are very important for the diversification of market. The thing is that this company has been diversified as it enters into new market. Market development According to Reiziger (et al, 2003) when a company took entrance into a new market and launch themselves by introducing existing products this is came to know as the development of market, and the main aim of the company is to lure the customers from the their existing competitors in that exiting market i.e. new market. The company Volkswagen has got the entry into Indian market in 2007 by launching their product Jetta, then after two years in 2009 the company has launched two new cars in market with their existing brand using the brand value in market these cars are ionic beetle and the Touarge sedans (Volkswagen India, 2010). Diversification Again in the views of Reizger (2003) this is the entrance of any new company with having the launch of their new product under its own brand is termed to be diversification. This strategy is commonly recognised as most risky one as there is introduction of two new entities one is market and other one is product. For the Volkswagen diversification is not so risky, as it has already successfully launched a variety of cars in the market with its own brand and in accordance with its brand image and with every brand it has inched higher and created sense of the demand in the market on every launch of new products. Most currently the company has as innovation there are four new car that has gone to be launched in 2012 and these new coming products are SUVW, Couple, Up and Blue Sport (Volkswagen, 2010). Conclusion Recommendation: As from above discussion it is concluded that Volkswagen has got an effective branding strategy but there are some factors that has to be taken into consideration for the company to make its brand VIP. In India this company is represented by three brands i.e. Audi, Skoda and Volkswagen and posses their own identity and features and an independent manner in market. The brand of Volkswagen along with Audi and Skoda provide good level of consistency and excellence in the market within the existing value, image and position of its brand in target market of automobiles. It has also been concluded that the company adopted brand leveraging strategy. The product launched by the company are good from all aspects and given for strengthen the brand image and identity in market. Having discussion over the marketing mix all the aspects of the marketing mix by the Volkswagen are handled in an effective way, company cover all areas of price, promotion, place and product well but there is some need to pay emphasis over the promotion and price aspect of the brand strategy to get the good response in market. It is also concluded that there is lack of loyalty factor in Indian market of Auto brands as compared to the other markets. The company Volkswagen is new in the market and hence there is low brand awareness of the company in market. There must be raise of awareness among all the required fields of market. There must bring up some improvements and creation of the brands. As in Indian market which is basically driven by the price and prerequisites, company Volkswagen carry on its brand with the quality factor only. This is criticised here because this strategy will create hindrance in the brand development and prosperity of the company. The factor of Cannibalization can be seen as it can pay an important role for the Volkswagen approach for the branding i.e. multi branding approach and hence resulting in the brand that are new take the business away from that which are already established in market. There are some suggestions that the company can adopt for the effective brand management are to drive the response of the customers as they are the key link for the success of the company and there must be online and offline programmes of marketing. The company has to be involved in the Build Brand Engagement process to learn how the consumer wants to link up with the brand of product. They must continue to attempt at increasing the customer loyalty.

Contingency Planning Policy Statement

Contingency Planning Policy Statement Disaster Recovery Planning plays a most vital part in major industries where stored information or so called data plays the key role. Every business organization can be subjected to serious incidents or accidents which can prevent it from continuing day-day or normal operations and may cause in huge loss in terms of time as well as money. These incidents can happen at any day and at anytime, these causes can be natural calamities, human errors and system malfunctions. All Disaster Recovery planning needs to encompass how employees will communicate, where they will go and how they will keep doing their jobs. The details can vary greatly, depending on the size and scope of an organization and the way it does business. For some businesses, issues such as supply chain logistics are most crucial and are the focus on the plan. For others, information technology may play a more pivotal role, and the Disaster Recovery plan may have more of a focus on systems recovery. In this paper we are go ing to primarily discuss about steps to implement an actual disaster recovery plan. Below is the brief description of how the plan is implemented. Developing a contingency planning policy statement Conducting the business impact analysis (BIA) Identifying preventive controls Developing recovery strategies Developing a contingency plan Planning, testing, training and exercises Planning maintenance activities All the above steps are planned and performed taking all factors of the business into consideration. We shall also discuss the limitations of implementing such a plan. We shall also include real time examples and the successful results yielded by implementing the Disaster Recovery Plan. So this plans would act like a backup recovery process or a kind of business continuity solution while the actual system goes offline or corrupted. DISASTER RECOVERY PLANNING Have we ever imagined as to what would happen if we belong to a business and we lose critical data or information due to some errors like human errors or a server crash or a lost computer or any natural calamity? Such kind of loss of information could lead to major losses in information in turn would affect the company in term of time and money and in this current world where recession has struck real bad the stakes are even higher. Protection information or data in a company is one of the major tasks or responsibility a company should take, such is the time where the disaster recovery planning would come in great help. Disasters strike untimely in many forms like natural disasters, computer errors or human errors. These kinds of disasters could lead to major catastrophe in the companys future. Disaster Recovery Planning is a procedure or a plan which protects the business data and in case of a calamity would help in continuity of business operations with the least loss amount in ter ms of time and money. The terrorist 9/11 attacks on the United States are one of such great examples in history for many organization decision makers to focus on the need for disaster recovery. There was huge loss of data and resulted in great loss of money and jolted the market for a few months. Business continuity and Disaster Recovery are major components which help to ensure that systems essential to the operation of the organization are available when needed. The term disaster took to a new height after the 9/11 events, before many business used to think disasters in terms of natural calamities or computer errors. Some events occur in such a way that it may take months or even years to recover. Sources say that till date, 70% of small businesses in the U.S. experienced a data loss in the past year due to technical or human disaster alone [AMI U.S. Small Business 2009 Annual Overview]. 1Over years many companied have started to realize the importance of this recovery planning an d business continuity. Sources even say that the companies which have actually using these plans are very happy and secure and scare for any type of disaster has been reduced. Sources say that from the year 2000 there has been a gradual increase in the companies who have started to implement the Disaster Recovery solution and the Business continuity solutions. The IT business has always been a target for many hackers and terrorist organizations all over the world. Over the years IT has improved and has been a major source of money as well as information. The security in the IT organization has always been a question mark as through the years, many disasters have occurred and there has been huge loss of data. In the early years IT companies has always been the target as the security measures werent that strong, they were used to be called as Single Point of Failures. So with the increasing threats from external organization, recovery plans and solutions have started to improve and ga ined lot of Interest over the years. IBM was an organization which had made a major influence in the market in providing the recovery solutions. Many companies initially thought that the implementation of these disaster recovery plans could be really expensive and had to deal with a lot of money, but they soon realized the loss occurred during a disaster is far more than the amount required to invest for the solutions. The primary reason in order to implement this kind of solution is: To implement accurate and continuous critical records, data backup, and off-site storage. To develop various strategies in order to provide alternative sites for business operations. To construct a contingency organization. To resume business operations with the loss of least amount of time and money. The following are the key steps or procedures which are needed to be followed in order to implement a disaster recovery plan: Developing a contingency planning policy statement Conducting the business impact analysis (BIA) Identifying preventive controls Developing recovery strategies Developing a contingency plan Planning, testing, training and exercises Planning maintenance activities CONTINGENCY PLANNING POLICY STATEMENT According to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the following statement means that it is a set of management policies and procedures designed to maintain and restore business operations, possibly at an alternate location in the event of emergency, system failure or disaster.-2 This is one major component in the disaster recovery planning. In this, a plan is laid down keeping all the emergency situations in mind and preparation for any kind of disasters which may occur at any point of time. The policy statement is really talks about communication between management and those responsible for developing the plan. Keeping in view the driving goals of the project and the level of financial resources and other resources, the particular people who are involved and are to be responsible, this policy statement gives everything that the planners need to work out options in order to achieve the organizations goals. It also provides the scope to planners to interact with the management in case they need to re-assess the organization goals and resources from time to time. The importance of this step is not just for preparing the plan for the DR implementation but also at this step a major amount of cost is involved than the other phases of the DR implementation. Here a re the key points that the policy statement should address: What kind of disaster does the organization intend to cover? What do the organizations need to accomplish? How much time would it take in order to get things back to normal state? Where does the responsibility of the plan and planners end? How to take advantage of the crisis situation in order to improve your organization image with the stake holders? What level of system should be covered in case of any crisis? What is the maximum level of resources that the plan can command during the preparation, implementation, testing and maintenance? The initial draft for this plan may set goals that turn out to be impossible under the resource constraints specified. But as the time passes we need re-evaluate the policy and adjust the goals and resources according the situations. BUSINESS IMPACT ANALYSIS The primary purpose of this step is to ensure that everything is protected without any loss of resources. This will also facilitate as to how quickly the business operation should have to return to full operations in case a disaster occurs. These are analyzed and identified on the basis of the worst-case scenario which may occur that assumes that the physical infrastructure supporting each respective business unit would be destroyed and all records, equipment, etc. are not accessible within 30 days. The main objectives of the business impact analysis (BIA) are as follows: Estimating on what scale on each business unit can be affected financially, considering the worst case scenarios Estimating on what scale on the operations of each business unit can be affected considering the worse case scenarios. Identifying and estimating the amount of personnel required for recovery operations. Estimating the time frame required for each business unit, considering the worst case scenarios. The key business processes that act as backbones to the organizations ability to carry out its business are identified and the requirements that drive these processes are also analyzed. The above processes can be identified and sorted in two different ways. Outside-In Analysis: This analysis is conducted in consideration with external stake holders, outside suppliers and internal departments which depend on IT services. The outside-in analysis focuses on whole systems, at each layer taking into consideration, the current process or system as distinct from the users or other systems that depend on it and via versa. Depending on the overall complexity of your business and how it makes the ideal solution to divide things up in the context, we may end up with just a single layer or with many of them. Inside-Out Analysis: The inside-out phase primarily focuses on resources that are required in each layer in order to provide the services that have been identified in the Outside-In phase which covers everything from the core system to the IT resources in the organizations. Then for each of the above we shall determine the impact of a disaster which may cause disruption or damage of the resource on the functioning of the system and its ability to deliver the services on which other layers depend on. Then we determine the maximum time wastage due to the disaster test we conducted on each of the services on the basis of what other layers are dependent on these services. We shall also include in the analysis any indirect effects which were caused by the disaster on these services. The BIA Report should be presented to the Steering Committee PREVENTIVE MEASURES There has been a simple formula for determining the risk associated financially with a given type of disaster; $R=P*C*T where P is the probability that the disaster will occur, C is the hourly or daily cost of downtime in lost productivity, lost revenue, etc. and T is time outage. The primary purpose of this step is to reduce the time outage, which are also the main purposes of the DR plan. Since the risk and the other factor are directly proportional to the time outage associated, hence the reduction of time is the primary responsibility of this task. At the same time the reduction of the other two factors which is the probability of the occurrence of the disaster and the cost due to the downtime are equally important. So minimizing all the three factors would result in the least risk possible. Generally sources say that the cost of preventing a problem is far lower than the cost of fixing it after it occurs. Let us now look into how we can identify the above factors. Firstly the pr obability of disaster occurring is generally is the toughest one to say. Natural calamities come and strike without a sign. The only way to prevent them is to make the organization sites in safe places. Next is the computer malfunction or server crash, these can be prevented by regular maintenance, constant tracking through performance monitors, proper vigilance and good security. Secondly is the cost reduction, there should be maintenance in such a way that generally if by chance there has been any damage the system should be protected. We should not be in a position to replace and get a new one. Generally the cost associated in installing a new machine is always higher than the maintenance cost put on it. Even the cost of downtime can be reduced by reducing the organizations dependence on the system. Thirdly is the time outage, we need to have special ops teams which should act readily to any situational catastrophe. So by reducing all the above factors we can reduce the probabili ty of risk on the organization. RECOVERY STRATERGIES The primary task of this step is to determine how we have to achieve the disaster recovery goals for each of the systems and system components that were identified in the Business Impact Analysis. It is here that we do the core work of balancing costs and benefits of the available approaches. This step is not just about selecting specific vendors, determining exact costs, or developing detailed procedures, but the main purpose in this stage is to select the types of solution that you will use and to determine the scales of the costs involved. There are a set of consideration we need to follow while going through this phase. Firstly, we need to consider exactly what type of disasters may occur and classify them into different types based on the effectiveness Secondly; we need to consider solutions of differing range of coverage i.e. we need to determine solutions which can protect on the site failures as such a solution can also protect the system and its components. Lastly we need to consider are the characteristics of infrastructure, human and data aspects of recovery. Each of the above three factors should be considered separately and we should determine what type of solution and the cost associated for the solution. Out of the above three factors Infrastructure recovery is the simplest. The best feature of infrastructure is that it can be replaced easily. People are considered more difficult factors. Every personnel in the company are associated with particular skills and accordingly they are assigned roles. So if a recovery strategy is needed to be implemented on these people, suppose if a personnel has been fired or he quits then finding another personnel of the same skill set and roles is always an additional cost ,since we need to play better salaries. Thirdly it is the data; this cannot be replaced at any cost. Once a data is lost cannot be recovered at any cost. What we need to determine is to what extent of data we can lose and identify which is the c ritical data and we need to protect it accordingly. Once this is done, we have to note the recovery strategies for each system on the Master System Information form. DEVELOP THE CONTINGENCY PLAN This step is the apex or the peak activity of all your work. The main outcome of this phase is the documented plan and the complete implementation of the infrastructure in order to implement the plan. This documented plan includes each and every information of assumptions, constraints and specific procedure needed to be implemented. The implementation phase contains all the purchasing and setup of all the hardware and implementation at the sites, communication services etc. This phase itself is run by a team, just like a team which handles projects. Team which consists of different expertise with fixed timelines and deadlines. According to the NIST guide the following are some aspects or steps which needed to be followed during the plan. 1. Introduction: Here the main task is to document the goals and scope of the plan, along with any requirements that must be taken into account whenever the plan is updated. 2. Operational Overview: The purpose of this section is to provide a concise picture of the plans overall approach. It contains essentially two types of information: (1) a high-level overview of the systems being protected and the recovery strategies employed and (2) a description of the recovery teams and their roles. 3. Notification/Activation Phase: According to the NIST guide this phase defines the initial actions taken once a system disruption or emergency has been detected or appears to be imminent. This phase includes activities like notifying recovery personnel, assessing system damage and implementation of the plan. At the completion of this phase, recovery staff will be prepared to perform contingency measures to restore system functions on a temporary basis. 4. Recovery Phase: This section of the plan is one that documents in detail the solutions to be used to recover each system and the procedures required to carry out the recovery and restore operational activities. 5. Reconstitution Phase: This is the last of the three sections of the plan. As per the NIST guide this phase is where the recovery activities are terminated and normal operations are transferred back to the organizations facility. If the original facility is unrecoverable, the activities in this phase can also be applied to preparing a new facility to support system processing requirements. 6. Appendices: The appendices contains any information that (a) is necessary as reference material during recovery, (b) may be necessary during any revision of the plan, or (c) documents legal agreements. PLANNING TESTING TRAINING AND EXERCICES In this fast moving modern information technology world, with the change in time and things, many hardware components are replaced, softwares are upgraded, networks are reconfigured, data sizes grow. All the above factors play a major impact on the performance of the disaster recovery systems. Testing and exercising goals are established and alternative testing strategies are evaluated from time to time. Each and every procedure required for testing should be properly documented from time to time. Initially the testing should be done in sections and should be conducted after the office hours. Below are some types of testing: Check List Testing Simulation Testing Parallel Testing Full Interruption Testing Although these systems were fully tested when first installed, but the system is dynamic in nature, so proper training should be given to personnel from time to time. We need to conduct exercises from time to time to check the status and under different condition with the help from all the personnel in the organization. Once the plan has been properly tested and documented it should be approved by the top management to start off. The management would take all the responsibility of preparation of policies, procedure, responsibilities and tasks associated with it. It should make sure that they review the contingency plan at least annually and re-assess and approve it. At the same it should be responsible in making limitations and constraints. Proper implementation of the above all factors will lead to a smooth start up and helps the DR plan successful. PLAN MAINTAINENCE After developing a disaster recovery plan, it is equally important to ensure that the plan accurately runs accordingly to the current requirements and systems. There are three places, at which the plan can be reviewed firstly, during testing annually or semiannually, and secondly when changes are made in either the IT systems being protected or in the business processes they support. The first of the above two falls in the responsibility of the top management in the disaster recovery planning and so has to be done on a regular basis. The last requires that consideration of the impact of the changes on the disaster recovery plan to be introduced as a standard consideration in procedures that are outside the scope of direct concern of those responsible for the DR plan. SUMMARY The world is fast changing and organizations need to be prepared for natural or manmade disasters that could disrupt business processes. Customers and millions of dollars could potentially be lost and never be recovered if business processes are disrupted. The Business Continuity Plan helps resume the business processes and the Disaster Recovery Plan helps resume the IT systems. The core objective of a Disaster Recovery Plan is to restore the operability of systems that support mission-critical and critical business processes to normal operation as quickly as possible. Business continuity planning integrates the business resumption plan, occupant emergency plan, incident management plan, continuity of operations plan, and disaster recovery plan. Personnel from each major business unit should be included as members of the team and part of all disaster recovery planning activities. These people need to understand the business processes, technology behind those processes, networks, and systems in order to create the disaster recovery plan. Applications and systems are identified by the team that is mission-critical and critical to the organization. There would be a specialist disaster recovery team which will be responsible for training, implementing, and maintaining the plan. They will possess unique skills, knowledge, and abilities that should be updated in the plan. A Disaster Recovery Plan that is well developed, trained on, and maintained, will minimize loss and ensure continuity of critical business processes in the event of disaster.

Comparisons betwen the movie One Flew over a Cuckoos Nest and a visit to a mental institution :: essays research papers

In this paper I will be comparing the visit to the State Mental Institution and the movie One Flew Over a Cuckoo's Nest. I think the two aspects of metal illnesses has had a effect on the way I see people who are not mentally stable. The three topics that are being compared are; staff concerns, spiritual development, and treatment methods. In the movie One Flew Over a Cuckoo's Nest the staff concernments was different from the staff concernments at the mental institution. In the movie nurse Ratchet was an bad influence to the patients who needed to be helped in the social groups. Instead of nurse Ratchet listening to the patients, she patronized and compressed them into their own kind of thinking. I think instead of helping them, Ms. Ratchet only mad the worst come out of the patients because of the way she downed their inner feelings and did not treat them as real people . From the visit at the State Hospital, the staff seem to real care about the patients and their mental stableness. I think with most mental illness people can really get help from people who actually care. If the staff really listen to what their patients have to say, then a patient can only be lead to better health. I think in any mental institution spiritual development with God should be allowed regardless of anything. In the movie, there really was not anything spiritual that was talked about. I think that if the nurse's and the patients had a spiritual side to them, then the sessions that took place could have been more helpful to the patients. In the State Institutionone staff memeber, told us that spirituality was show in the institution, but not to much because the staff members do not want to force their religion on the patients. The ways of treatment to the patients was an huge difference between a movie and reality. In the movie the shock treatment was heavily used for the patients who would get out of hand in the sessions. I thought that was nurse Ratchet crazy way to deal with the patients mental illnesses. In the movie there was also a time called; Medicine Time, where the patients would line up to take their medicine. In the State Institution we really did not see any patients lining up for their medicine, because they were treated like people.

Mathematical Ethics Essay -- Math Philosophy Aristotle Papers

Mathematical Ethics Philosophers since antiquity have argued the merits of mathematics as a normative aid in ethical decision-making and of the mathematization of ethics a theoretical discipline. Recently, Anagnostopoulos, Annas, Broadie and Hutchinson have probed such issues said to be of interest to Aristotle. Despite their studies, the sense in which Aristotle either opposed or proposed a mathematical ethics in subject-matter and method remains unclear. This paper attempts to clarify the matter. It shows Aristotle’s matrix of exactness and inexactness for ethical subject-matter and ethical method in the Nicomachean Ethics. Then it probes a resultant puzzle from the matrix, namely, the HL model of the happy life without consideration of mathematical justice (Bk. III) and the HJL model of the happy life with such consideration (Bk. V). Finally, it examines Aristotle’s twofold rationale for differentiating these two models in his overall moral feedback loop system: differences in the intel lectual virtue of good deliberation; the priority of friendship over justice for the happy life. This suggests Aristotle saw no objection either to using mathematics as an aid to ethical decision-making for a happy life, or to mathematizing at least some parts of an ethical theory of eudaimonism. I. The problem of math ethics in modernity and antiquity Mathematizing ethics to become scientific ethics has long been a dream of some philosophers, dating to both the Academy and perhaps the Lyceum. In modern philosophy Jeremy Bentham, (1) G.E. Moore, (2) and Nicholas Rescher (3) have tried to mathematize ethics. Such mathematizations square with Quine's view that mathematizing inexact things by way of exact methods marks a successful reduc... ...participants. It misses the mark methodologically, or, as Broadie likens it, it is "playing at ethics" or even a "perversion." It is, as Aristotle sees in the Nicomachean Ethics, a deception, since the underlying longitudinal assumption is that someone thinks they can become good by talking about the good without doing good and without being impacted by doing what they have chosen in a moral feedback loop system. (1105b 13-17) Furthermore, such maturation theories overlook the iterative dimension of moral decision-making with feedback loops and filters in the development of moral character — including the possible use of mathematical ethics in the manner of Aristotle, who seems to have steered a middle course between complete reductive mathematization of ethics and an apriori resistance to even a partial mathematization of ethics. "Not too much and not too little!"

Nurse Practitioner

Yaidelyn Alonso SLS1125: Matos 4/20/12 Nurses: â€Å"Caring Today For A Healthier Tomorrow† Growing up in a house hold of medical personnel, such as my mother and my aunt and other close relatives has really inspired me to become a Nurse Practitioner, but most of all my inspiration has come due to the death of my father. I want to help patients who may have false hope, who may think that there’s nothing anyone can do, I want to give patients hope, and I will devote my life to make a difference in the medical field.Although it won’t be easy, I know there will be obstacles I have to overcome, I think anything is possible if you persevere and if you commit yourself to do something that you love. At the end of the day you made at least one person’s life more enjoyable and filled them with hope, that’s what I’ll be thinking every night before I lay my head on my pillow. A Nurse Practitioner is a registered nurse with advanced training in diagnosin g and treating illnesses. Nurse Practitioners prescribe medication which usually RN’s cannot do, as well as treat illnesses, and administer physical exams.The difference between an NP and a physician is that they focus on prevention, wellness and education. To be more specific Nurse Practitioners may specialize in either Neonatal Care with new born and baby’s or Geriatric Health, Adult Health, Oncology, Family Health and Psychiatric/Mental Health. Personally I love trauma centers and the Emergency Room, I’m quick on my feet and I do not like standing around, I like a job that challenges me and keeps me occupied.As a Nurse Practitioner you can sub-specialize in different areas and lately I’ve been very interested in Oncology. To be very brief my father passed away due to cancer in his liver, I want to help and provide my utmost help to those with cancer like his, I want to make someone’s day a little brighter no matter how sick they really feel. I d on’t just want to be a healthcare personnel I want to be the difference in someone’s life, I want patients to have faith in me because I won’t fail to care to there every need.In order to become an NP there’s certain qualifications you need to abide by and of course you first must finish you AA and your bachelors in Registered Nursing. As a current student in Miami Dade College I’ve researched and spoke with counselors that have guided me into the classes I must take to even get into the nursing program. Such as the basics chemistry and human growth and development, as well as Anatomy 1 and Anatomy 2, it’s not just taking the classes but about passing them with extraordinary grades and graduate with your AA and a really good GPA.After graduating with my AA I plan to transfer to FIU and further my studies, they have a great Nursing program, as soon as I graduate with my bachelors degree I will continue to get my masters and broaden my knowled ge in my studies. To be a nurse practitioner, you need to have a graduate degree, such as a Master of Science in Nursing (MSN) or Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP). The current minimum education needed to work as a Nurse Practitioner is a MSN degree, which takes 3-4 years to complete, depending on your specialty.Many colleges and universities prefer you have a Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) for entry into this graduate program, while other schools allow a bachelor's degree in another field if you are a registered nurse. In further detail In order to become an oncology nurse specialist, I will need to learn specific cancer care skills through coursework, clinical practice or continuing education. After gaining enough knowledge and on-the-job experience, I then can take an exam to become an Oncology Certified Nurse.To become an oncology nurse practitioner, I will also need to complete a  Master of Science in Nursing (MSN) degree, typically obtained through a 2-year program of g raduate study. As an oncology nurse practitioner, I will need at least 500 hours of supervised clinical practice in oncology to be eligible to take the certification examination to become an Advanced Oncology Certified Nurse Practitioner (AOCNP). Certification is required in many states such as Florida. As with all  nursing careers, the demand for oncology nurses practitioner is expected to increase significantly over the next ten years.This is especially true because the vast majority of cancers are diagnosed in people over 55, making oncology nurses critically necessary! The median expected salary for a typical  Nurse Practitioner  in the  United States  is  $90,531. Nursing is an art: and if it is to be made an art, It requires an exclusive devotion as hard a preparation, as any painter's or sculptor's work; for what is the having to do with dead canvas or dead marble, compared with having to do with the living body, the temple of God's spirit? It is one of the Fine A rts: I had almost said, the finest of Fine Arts. – Florence Nightingale Nurse Practitioner Yaidelyn Alonso SLS1125: Matos 4/20/12 Nurses: â€Å"Caring Today For A Healthier Tomorrow† Growing up in a house hold of medical personnel, such as my mother and my aunt and other close relatives has really inspired me to become a Nurse Practitioner, but most of all my inspiration has come due to the death of my father. I want to help patients who may have false hope, who may think that there’s nothing anyone can do, I want to give patients hope, and I will devote my life to make a difference in the medical field.Although it won’t be easy, I know there will be obstacles I have to overcome, I think anything is possible if you persevere and if you commit yourself to do something that you love. At the end of the day you made at least one person’s life more enjoyable and filled them with hope, that’s what I’ll be thinking every night before I lay my head on my pillow. A Nurse Practitioner is a registered nurse with advanced training in diagnosin g and treating illnesses. Nurse Practitioners prescribe medication which usually RN’s cannot do, as well as treat illnesses, and administer physical exams.The difference between an NP and a physician is that they focus on prevention, wellness and education. To be more specific Nurse Practitioners may specialize in either Neonatal Care with new born and baby’s or Geriatric Health, Adult Health, Oncology, Family Health and Psychiatric/Mental Health. Personally I love trauma centers and the Emergency Room, I’m quick on my feet and I do not like standing around, I like a job that challenges me and keeps me occupied.As a Nurse Practitioner you can sub-specialize in different areas and lately I’ve been very interested in Oncology. To be very brief my father passed away due to cancer in his liver, I want to help and provide my utmost help to those with cancer like his, I want to make someone’s day a little brighter no matter how sick they really feel. I d on’t just want to be a healthcare personnel I want to be the difference in someone’s life, I want patients to have faith in me because I won’t fail to care to there every need.In order to become an NP there’s certain qualifications you need to abide by and of course you first must finish you AA and your bachelors in Registered Nursing. As a current student in Miami Dade College I’ve researched and spoke with counselors that have guided me into the classes I must take to even get into the nursing program. Such as the basics chemistry and human growth and development, as well as Anatomy 1 and Anatomy 2, it’s not just taking the classes but about passing them with extraordinary grades and graduate with your AA and a really good GPA.After graduating with my AA I plan to transfer to FIU and further my studies, they have a great Nursing program, as soon as I graduate with my bachelors degree I will continue to get my masters and broaden my knowled ge in my studies. To be a nurse practitioner, you need to have a graduate degree, such as a Master of Science in Nursing (MSN) or Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP). The current minimum education needed to work as a Nurse Practitioner is a MSN degree, which takes 3-4 years to complete, depending on your specialty.Many colleges and universities prefer you have a Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) for entry into this graduate program, while other schools allow a bachelor's degree in another field if you are a registered nurse. In further detail In order to become an oncology nurse specialist, I will need to learn specific cancer care skills through coursework, clinical practice or continuing education. After gaining enough knowledge and on-the-job experience, I then can take an exam to become an Oncology Certified Nurse.To become an oncology nurse practitioner, I will also need to complete a  Master of Science in Nursing (MSN) degree, typically obtained through a 2-year program of g raduate study. As an oncology nurse practitioner, I will need at least 500 hours of supervised clinical practice in oncology to be eligible to take the certification examination to become an Advanced Oncology Certified Nurse Practitioner (AOCNP). Certification is required in many states such as Florida. As with all  nursing careers, the demand for oncology nurses practitioner is expected to increase significantly over the next ten years.This is especially true because the vast majority of cancers are diagnosed in people over 55, making oncology nurses critically necessary! The median expected salary for a typical  Nurse Practitioner  in the  United States  is  $90,531. Nursing is an art: and if it is to be made an art, It requires an exclusive devotion as hard a preparation, as any painter's or sculptor's work; for what is the having to do with dead canvas or dead marble, compared with having to do with the living body, the temple of God's spirit? It is one of the Fine A rts: I had almost said, the finest of Fine Arts. – Florence Nightingale

Facebook Addiction Disorder

Article 1 Title : Online Social Networking and Addiction Writer(s) : Daria J. Kuss and Mark D. Griffiths Source : www. mdpi. com/journal/ijerph Social Networking Sites (SNS) or in this case Facebook has been causing serious addiction amongst individuals these days. This situation is no longer seen as an addiction but as a serious mental health issue. People these days spend majority of their time online by surfing Facebook in their virtual community. Psychologists describe this scenario as ‘Facebook Addiction Disorder’ (FAD).This disorder is seen as an addiction because the individual who is said to be addicted to Facebook actually confronts similar criteria as other addictive activities. One is said to be having FAD due to the increase in time spent on Facebook. Besides that, FAD also increases individualistic culture among its users. Moreover, egocentrism is another factor that contributes to this problem since it may induce addictive characteristics within the particu lar individual. This is mainly down to attraction which is the key factor to Facebook Addiction Disorder.Furthermore, like any other addiction, this issue has its symptoms as well. The author has addressed several symptoms that can be used to classify a person as a Facebook addict. Negligence of personal life, mental preoccupation, escapism, mood modifying experiences, tolerance, and concealing the addictive behavior are among the symptoms that can be seen in a Facebook addict. These symptoms are detrimental to one’s mental health and well being because the person spends too much of time and energy in a virtual world.The effects of Facebook addiction or behavioral-related addiction and substance-related addiction is suggested to be the same as both have negative consequences on the addict as time goes by. (259 words) Article 2 Title : Facebook Addiction Disorder – The 6 Symptoms of F. A. D. Writer : Amy Summers Source : www. socialtimes. com This article touches on the issue of Facebook Addiction Disorder, amongst teenagers and its effect on their surroundings. This occurrence is the latest obsession and a virtual object of craze amongst teenagers.This is mainly due to Facebook being the current big thing everywhere that even family members of the teenagers till educated professionals are going mad over the social networking site. These teenagers tend to go overboard when they participate in this phenomenon as it is a trend that is considered uber- cool and they become obsessive about it. â€Å"Facebook Addiction Disorder† (FAD) is a condition which is defined by hours spent on Facebook by a person. The time spent is said to be affecting the balance of an individual’s life.There are six key symptoms mentioned by the author for this disorder. Firstly, a person with FAD will be spending so much time on the site which leads to a stage where they need it in order to obtain satisfaction. Besides, reducing normal social or recreational ac tivities, they will also plan virtual dates as instead of meeting their partner somewhere, they will ask their partner to be online at a certain time. Other than that, the friends list of an addict will mostly have strangers rather than the ones they know in real life.Finally, the sign of complete addiction is when they introduce themselves to someone and promise to see them on Facebook. Parents who try to help their children out of this problem, turn out to be more addicted than their teenage kids. (257 words) REFLECTION Facebook. Something that started off within the walls of Harvard University in 2004 has been ruling the world for the past half decade. Newborn babies to near death grannies and even animals these days have a profile on this social networking site. This site has been so major that these days the first word that type into the World Wide Web is Facebook. 45 million users in just 8 years is a quite a record for any social networking site in the world. It has been so h yped up that to have a Facebook profile has become a basic need for certain group of people. A tool that is supposed to be used prudently has been used extensively by some individuals so much so that they have become addicted to it. In fact, psychologists in the United States of America came up with the term ‘Facebook Addiction Disorder’ (FAD) back in 2009 as they predicted this syndrome will take the world faster than it took for the site to become global.Well, their prediction has become true. This condition is considered to a serious mental illness these days, even worse since it’s caused by addiction that could be compared to the likes of drugs and cigarettes. Who would’ve thought that a social networking site could spell so much trouble? Based on the two articles, the key point to this disorder is due to the amount of time spent on this site. People tend to spend too much time on this site than actually do something about their lives.Those days when a working man gets his off day, he would be either having a good sleep or spend some quality time with his family, but nowadays the working man would rather spend his off day by enduring a sleepless night just to spend his time on Facebook. This sounds totally ridiculous. In the context of students, they would be glad to chat with their friends online, upload pictures and update their status but they would not bother to even flip through their textbooks or homeworks given by the teacher. This proves that Facebook is affecting people regardless of age limit.The amount of time spent on Facebook shows the level of addiction of the person to the site. Thus, the hypothesis would be that, the more the time taken to use Facebook, the higher the addiction level. A person who is possessed with this global demon is also very dangerous as it may make you oblivious to your surroundings. Facebook addicts do not care about what’s happening around them. However, they would ‘likeâ€℠¢ a certain post about Earth Hour during the hour when all electric appliances should be shut down.This shows how a person can be an environmentalist in the virtual world, but a person with no social awareness in reality. This means that Facebook addicts have another problem, Multiple Personality Disorder because they have two avatars, each in two different worlds, Facebook and reality. This disorder also causes people to be very aggressive. They would be very sad if a friend did not respond to their request to be friends on Facebook. Some of them would even compete with each other to increase their list of friends.This situation could not be considered as something that tickles our funny bones, but it is something that should be thought rationally and seriously since the issue is getting worse day to day. What is the point of adding a thousand people into your profile and chat with them happily online, when you turn your back towards them in reality? Besides that, the majority of g roup that is most affected by this phenomenon are teenagers. Being born in this era of online madness is not a sin, but they are being led into fake world that is given a fancy name of globalization!They think that being on Facebook is the coolest thing to do as a teenager. What a misconception? Students these days do not prefer face to face interaction where as they prefer to virtual communication. Do not be surprised if in the future two people, who won’t even smile at each other, could be best friends on Facebook. If the number of Facebook addicts increase continuously, sooner or later we would be witnessing the growth of an unhealthy generation of youth with no social skills because all this while they never knew how to make friends, socialize or even take part in recreational activities.The major factor to this crisis is because their conceptualization of social life is Facebook. This so called social networking site also happens to social crime networking site lately. O n 18th April 2012, in Pune, India, a 16 year old girl was kidnapped by her Facebook friend whom she had known through the website. After kidnapping her, the accused initially demanded a ransom of Rs 100,000 from her mother. But later fearing police action, he got the girl admitted to a private hospital telling the hospital authorities that he found her ‘wandering' on the road after she was thrown out of a van by some people.What could have happened to the girl if the kidnapper was a psychopath? The consequence would have been unfathomable. This is what happens to certain Facebook addicts who reveal too much of details online. What is the worth of an individual who is deemed as a very private person in reality, where as in the virtual world they reveal everything to everyone? In the working world, those days’ workers were scolded by their employers for talking during their work time; nowadays they are sacked for using Facebook at work.In certain scenarios, the employees are sacked because they update their Facebook status at work, capture pictures while working and also to have the guts to upload it at work. Where is the discipline of the working world going? Why are they being so irresponsible? In a book titled ‘Facebook Addiction’, the author who is an addict himself says that once when he was trying to pack up his laptop, a client called and asked him to work on a website. The moment he opened the internet browser, the first thing he did was, type in â€Å"www. acebook. com† and logged in, he promised to himself to spend only five minutes, he couldn’t resist himself and spent eight hours on the website. On top of that, in terms of relationships, Facebook addicts do not have a proper life there either; there have been reported cases in America, of young married couples who file for divorce. In a survey conducted by the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers (AAML), researchers found that Facebook was mentioned in 1 out of every 5 divorces in the United States.Some of the cases were due to lack communication between couples because one of the partners was always busy updating his Facebook status rather than actually communicating with his wife. Before marriage, messaging through the site could be fun or romantic, however post marital relationship requires commitment and real communication. These cases have proved that Facebook Addiction Disorder has been the major cause of many serious problems from school to the confinements of our home. If this scenario continues, this disorder could get into the line along serious mental illnesses.We as educators will be facing great dilemmas as the students would be more passive socially in reality, to overcome it we have to teach them in a condition where there is no active interaction between teacher and a student. However, if we stand with our hands folded, one day we might see the portrait of our society in the obituary column in the newspapers. APPENDIX A rticle 1 Title : Online Social Networking and Addiction Writer(s) : Daria J. Kuss and Mark D. Griffiths Source : www. mdpi. com/journal/ijerph â€Å"I’m an addict.I just get lost in Facebook† replies a young mother when asked why she does not see herself able to help her daughter with her homework. Instead of supporting her child, she spends her time chatting and browsing the social networking site . This case, while extreme, is suggestive of a potential new mental health problem that emerges as Internet social networks proliferate. Newspaper stories have also reported similar cases, suggesting that the popular press was early to discern the potentially addictive qualities of social networking sites.Such media coverage has alleged that women are at greater risk than men for developing addictions to SNSs . The mass appeal of social networks on the Internet could potentially be a cause for concern, particularly when attending to the gradually increasing amounts of time p eople spend online . On the Internet, people engage in a variety of activities some of which may be potentially to be addictive. Rather than becoming addicted to the medium per se, some users may develop an addiction to specific activities they carry out online.Specifically, Young argues that there are five different types of internet addiction, namely computer addiction (i. e. , computer game addiction), information overload (i. e. , web surfing addiction), net compulsions (i. e. , online gambling or online shopping addiction), cybersexual addiction (i. e. , online pornography or online sex addiction), and cyber-relationship addiction (i. e. , an addiction to online relationships). SNS addiction appears to fall in the last category since the purpose and main motivation to use SNSs is to establish and maintain both on- and offline relationships.From a clinical psychologist’s perspective, it may be plausible to speak specifically of ‘Facebook Addiction Disorder’ ( or more generally ‘SNS Addiction Disorder’) because addiction criteria, such as neglect of personal life, mental preoccupation, escapism, mood modifying experiences, tolerance, and concealing the addictive behavior, appear to be present in some people who use SNSs excessively. Social Networking Sites are virtual communities where users can create individual public profiles, interact with real-life friends, and meet other people based on shared interests.SNSs are web-based services that allow individuals to: construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system†. The focus is placed on established networks, rather than on networking, which implies the construction of new networks. SNSs offer individuals the possibilities of networking and sharing media content, therefore embracing the main Web 2. attributes, against the framework of their respective structural characteristics. In terms of SNS history, the first social networking site (SixDegrees) was launched in 1997, based on the idea that everybody is linked with everybody else via six degrees of separation, and initially referred to as the â€Å"small world problem†. In 2004, the most successful current SNS, Facebook, was established as a closed virtual community for Harvard students. The site expanded very quickly and Facebook currently has more than 500 million users, of whom fifty percent log on to it every day.Furthermore, the overall time spent on Facebook increased by 56% from 2007 to 2008. This statistic alone indicates the exponential appeal of SNSs and also suggests a reason for a rise in potential SNS addiction. Hypothetically, the appeal of SNSs may be traced back to its reflection of today’s individualist culture. Unlike traditional virtual communities that emerged during the 1990s based on shar ed interests of their members, social networking sites are egocentric sites. It is the individual rather than the community that is the focus of attention. Egocentrism has been linked to Internet addiction.Supposedly, the egocentric construction of SNSs may facilitate the engagement in addictive behaviors and may thus serve as a factor that attracts people to using it in a potentially excessive way. This hypothesis is in line with the PACE Framework for the etiology of addiction specificity. Attraction is one of the four key components that may predispose individuals to becoming addicted to specific behaviors or substances rather than specific others. Accordingly, due to their egocentric construction, SNSs allow individuals to present themselves positively that may â€Å"raise their spirits† (i. . , enhance their mood state) because it is experienced as pleasurable. This may lead to positive experiences that can potentially cultivate and facilitate learning experiences that d rive the development of SNS addiction. A behavioral addiction such as SNS addiction may thus be seen from a biopsychosocial perspective . Just like substance-related addictions, SNS addiction incorporates the experience of the ‘classic’ addiction symptoms, namely mood modification (i. e. , engagement in SNSs leads to a favourable change in emotional states), salience (i. e. behavioral, cognitive, and emotional preoccupation with the SNS usage), tolerance (i. e. , ever increasing use of SNSs over time), withdrawal symptoms (i. e. , experiencing unpleasant physical and emotional symptoms when SNS use is restricted or stopped), conflict (i. e. , interpersonal and intrapsychic problems ensue because of SNS usage), and relapse (i. e. , addicts quickly revert back in their excessive SNS usage after an abstinence period). Moreover, scholars have suggested that a combination of biological, psychological and social factors contributes to the etiology of addictions, that may also hold true for SNS addiction.From this it follows that SNS addiction shares a common underlying etiological framework with other substance-related and behavioral addictions. However, due to the fact that the engagement in SNSs is different in terms of the actual expression of (Internet) addiction (i. e. , pathological use of social networking sites rather than other Internet applications), the phenomenon appears worthy of individual consideration, particularly when considering the potentially detrimental effects of both substance-related and behavioral addictions on individuals who experience a variety of negative consequences because of their addiction.Article 2 Title : Facebook Addiction Disorder – The 6 Symptoms of F. A. D. Writer : Amy Summers Source : www. socialtimes. com â€Å"Okay, I admit it. I am truly addicted to Facebook,† said teenage blogger Heidi Barry-Rodriquez in 2007. In 2009, teen Neeka Salmasi described the social networking giant as being â€Å"li ke an addiction†. This year, a casino site mentioned that â€Å"Facebook provides the atmosphere where it is tough to walk away† in a direct comparison to gambling addiction. A quick web search and it becomes appallingly evident that we have a problem.Text messaging is no longer the biggest teenage obsession, and long gone are the days where the biggest worries for parents were celebrity crushes, massive phone bills from ridiculously long phone calls and chocolate overloads. These teenage obsessions still exist, but in today’s day and age, and in comparison to the Facebook craze, they seem rather insignificant. Facebook is taking over the world, and that’s no exaggeration. Everyone from eager-to-fit-in teens to educated business people to intrigued grandparents has joined the phenomenon, and unsurprisingly many teenagers have also caught Facebook fever.And like with many of the latest attention-grabbing trends, some teenagers can go a little overboard when participating in them. Perhaps we join Facebook because everyone has an account and, as teenagers, the need to fit in is just too great, or perhaps there’s just a special something that has helped the social networking site attract so many million people. Teenagers have a tendency to become obsessive with the ‘in’ thing and Facebook, the trend of the decade, is no exception; the question is, have we overdone in? And is there really such thing as Facebook addiction?An American psychologist believes so. In fact, he’s even introduced a new term to describe such an addiction. FAD, or Facebook Addiction Disorder, is a condition that is defined by hours spent on Facebook, so much time in fact that the healthy balance of the individual’s life is affected. It has been said that approximately 350 million people are suffering from the disorder that is detected through a simple set of six-criteria. People who are victims of the condition must have at least 2- 3 of the following criteria during a 6-8 month time period. . Tolerance: This term is used to describe the desperate behavior of a Facebook addict. They spend an increasing amount of time on the site, coming to a stage where they need it in order to obtain satisfaction or on the other extreme, it is having a detrimental effect on them as a person and their life. For the family members and friends who think they are dealing with an addict, a sign to look out for are multiple Facebook windows open. Three or more confirms that they are indeed suffering from this condition. 2.Withdrawal symptoms: These become obvious when one is restricted from using Facebook because they have to participate in normal everyday activities. Common signs are anxiety, distress and the need to talk about Facebook and what might have been posted on their wall in their absence. 3. Reduction of normal social/recreational activities: Someone suffering from FAD will reduce the time spent catching up with friends, playing sport or whatever it is they used to enjoy doing, to simply spend time on Facebook. Instead of catching up with a friend for coffee, they will send a Facebook message.A dinner date will be substituted with a messenger chat. In extreme cases, the person will even stop answering their parent’s phone calls, instead insisting that they use Facebook to contact them. 4. Virtual dates: It is obvious that things are extreme when real dates are replaced with virtual dates. Instead of going to the movies or out to dinner, they tell their partner to be online at a certain time. 5. Fake friends: If 8 out of 10 people shown on their Facebook page are complete strangers, it is undeniable: they have a serious case of FAD. 6.Complete addiction: When they meet new people, they say their name, followed by â€Å"I’ll talk to you on Facebook†, or for those who are extremely bad, â€Å"I’ll see you in Facebook†. Their pets have Facebook pages, and any notifica tions, wall posts, inboxes or friend requests that they receive give them a high, one which can be compared to that gambling addicts get from the pokies or roulette table. So someone believes that addiction to the net is a real condition that needs to be treated just like any other addiction, with care and caution, but is an obsession with Facebook a real condition, or is FAD really just the latest fad?Either way, Facebook obsessions are definitely present in today’s society and whether it is a disorder or not, something needs to be done to fix it. Forget the fancy name and look at the facts. Many people, teenagers in particular, are spending too much time online. People’s lives are being affected because of the hours spent looking at profiles and pictures. Facebook, very beneficial in some ways, is having a detrimental effect on the everyday behaviors of people around the world. Having seen the affects of too much time online firsthand, I know this to be true.Nobody c an possibly disagree when the facts speak for themselves and when an individual’s online ‘life’ becomes more important than their real one; we know that there is a serious problem that needs to be addressed. But, what to do about it? How can we possibly fix a problem that has affected more than a third of the world’s population? That is a question I can’t answer, but I do know that our parents can play an important role, well, that is if the addicted is still young enough to be influenced by their parents. There are two kinds of parents in my area, both from different ends of the spectrum.On one side we have the Facebook haters; the parents who don’t have Facebook, don’t understand Facebook and never want to understand Facebook. On the other side, we have the Facebook lovers, those who act more like their teenage children than their parents. They’ve befriended their kids online, participate in their online conversations, comment on their photos and send messages from the lounge room to the bedroom instead of just walking up the hallway and keeping matters that should be kept private, well, private. Don’t believe me? I completely understand.It definitely sounds strange. But the truth is I actually know people like this and well I can only conclude one thing: that these parents, in an attempt to be their teen’s friend rather than their parent, have also been swept up in the Facebook craze and are now suffering from a similar sort of addiction. The apple really does never land far from the tree. REFERENCES 1. http://www. healthism. com/articles/facebook-addiction 2. http://deaddictioncentres. in/news/facebook-de-addiction-social-dysfunction/ 3. http://columbianewsservice. om/2011/02/the-facebook-relapse-trying-to-defriend-facebook/ 4. http://www. sakaaltimes. com/20120418/5754739842191348023. htm 5. http://socialtimes. com/facebook-addiction-disorder-the-6-symptoms-of-f-a-d_b60403 6. http://www. tomsguide. com/us/facebook-twitter-myspace,news-10312. html 7. http://www. netaddiction. com/index. php? option=com_blog&view= 8. American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders—Text Revision, Fourth Edition; American Psychiatric Association: Washington, DC, USA, 2000 9. Lenhart, A. Social Networking Facebook Addiction Disorder Article 1 Title : Online Social Networking and Addiction Writer(s) : Daria J. Kuss and Mark D. Griffiths Source : www. mdpi. com/journal/ijerph Social Networking Sites (SNS) or in this case Facebook has been causing serious addiction amongst individuals these days. This situation is no longer seen as an addiction but as a serious mental health issue. People these days spend majority of their time online by surfing Facebook in their virtual community. Psychologists describe this scenario as ‘Facebook Addiction Disorder’ (FAD).This disorder is seen as an addiction because the individual who is said to be addicted to Facebook actually confronts similar criteria as other addictive activities. One is said to be having FAD due to the increase in time spent on Facebook. Besides that, FAD also increases individualistic culture among its users. Moreover, egocentrism is another factor that contributes to this problem since it may induce addictive characteristics within the particu lar individual. This is mainly down to attraction which is the key factor to Facebook Addiction Disorder.Furthermore, like any other addiction, this issue has its symptoms as well. The author has addressed several symptoms that can be used to classify a person as a Facebook addict. Negligence of personal life, mental preoccupation, escapism, mood modifying experiences, tolerance, and concealing the addictive behavior are among the symptoms that can be seen in a Facebook addict. These symptoms are detrimental to one’s mental health and well being because the person spends too much of time and energy in a virtual world.The effects of Facebook addiction or behavioral-related addiction and substance-related addiction is suggested to be the same as both have negative consequences on the addict as time goes by. (259 words) Article 2 Title : Facebook Addiction Disorder – The 6 Symptoms of F. A. D. Writer : Amy Summers Source : www. socialtimes. com This article touches on the issue of Facebook Addiction Disorder, amongst teenagers and its effect on their surroundings. This occurrence is the latest obsession and a virtual object of craze amongst teenagers.This is mainly due to Facebook being the current big thing everywhere that even family members of the teenagers till educated professionals are going mad over the social networking site. These teenagers tend to go overboard when they participate in this phenomenon as it is a trend that is considered uber- cool and they become obsessive about it. â€Å"Facebook Addiction Disorder† (FAD) is a condition which is defined by hours spent on Facebook by a person. The time spent is said to be affecting the balance of an individual’s life.There are six key symptoms mentioned by the author for this disorder. Firstly, a person with FAD will be spending so much time on the site which leads to a stage where they need it in order to obtain satisfaction. Besides, reducing normal social or recreational ac tivities, they will also plan virtual dates as instead of meeting their partner somewhere, they will ask their partner to be online at a certain time. Other than that, the friends list of an addict will mostly have strangers rather than the ones they know in real life.Finally, the sign of complete addiction is when they introduce themselves to someone and promise to see them on Facebook. Parents who try to help their children out of this problem, turn out to be more addicted than their teenage kids. (257 words) REFLECTION Facebook. Something that started off within the walls of Harvard University in 2004 has been ruling the world for the past half decade. Newborn babies to near death grannies and even animals these days have a profile on this social networking site. This site has been so major that these days the first word that type into the World Wide Web is Facebook. 45 million users in just 8 years is a quite a record for any social networking site in the world. It has been so h yped up that to have a Facebook profile has become a basic need for certain group of people. A tool that is supposed to be used prudently has been used extensively by some individuals so much so that they have become addicted to it. In fact, psychologists in the United States of America came up with the term ‘Facebook Addiction Disorder’ (FAD) back in 2009 as they predicted this syndrome will take the world faster than it took for the site to become global.Well, their prediction has become true. This condition is considered to a serious mental illness these days, even worse since it’s caused by addiction that could be compared to the likes of drugs and cigarettes. Who would’ve thought that a social networking site could spell so much trouble? Based on the two articles, the key point to this disorder is due to the amount of time spent on this site. People tend to spend too much time on this site than actually do something about their lives.Those days when a working man gets his off day, he would be either having a good sleep or spend some quality time with his family, but nowadays the working man would rather spend his off day by enduring a sleepless night just to spend his time on Facebook. This sounds totally ridiculous. In the context of students, they would be glad to chat with their friends online, upload pictures and update their status but they would not bother to even flip through their textbooks or homeworks given by the teacher. This proves that Facebook is affecting people regardless of age limit.The amount of time spent on Facebook shows the level of addiction of the person to the site. Thus, the hypothesis would be that, the more the time taken to use Facebook, the higher the addiction level. A person who is possessed with this global demon is also very dangerous as it may make you oblivious to your surroundings. Facebook addicts do not care about what’s happening around them. However, they would ‘likeâ€℠¢ a certain post about Earth Hour during the hour when all electric appliances should be shut down.This shows how a person can be an environmentalist in the virtual world, but a person with no social awareness in reality. This means that Facebook addicts have another problem, Multiple Personality Disorder because they have two avatars, each in two different worlds, Facebook and reality. This disorder also causes people to be very aggressive. They would be very sad if a friend did not respond to their request to be friends on Facebook. Some of them would even compete with each other to increase their list of friends.This situation could not be considered as something that tickles our funny bones, but it is something that should be thought rationally and seriously since the issue is getting worse day to day. What is the point of adding a thousand people into your profile and chat with them happily online, when you turn your back towards them in reality? Besides that, the majority of g roup that is most affected by this phenomenon are teenagers. Being born in this era of online madness is not a sin, but they are being led into fake world that is given a fancy name of globalization!They think that being on Facebook is the coolest thing to do as a teenager. What a misconception? Students these days do not prefer face to face interaction where as they prefer to virtual communication. Do not be surprised if in the future two people, who won’t even smile at each other, could be best friends on Facebook. If the number of Facebook addicts increase continuously, sooner or later we would be witnessing the growth of an unhealthy generation of youth with no social skills because all this while they never knew how to make friends, socialize or even take part in recreational activities.The major factor to this crisis is because their conceptualization of social life is Facebook. This so called social networking site also happens to social crime networking site lately. O n 18th April 2012, in Pune, India, a 16 year old girl was kidnapped by her Facebook friend whom she had known through the website. After kidnapping her, the accused initially demanded a ransom of Rs 100,000 from her mother. But later fearing police action, he got the girl admitted to a private hospital telling the hospital authorities that he found her ‘wandering' on the road after she was thrown out of a van by some people.What could have happened to the girl if the kidnapper was a psychopath? The consequence would have been unfathomable. This is what happens to certain Facebook addicts who reveal too much of details online. What is the worth of an individual who is deemed as a very private person in reality, where as in the virtual world they reveal everything to everyone? In the working world, those days’ workers were scolded by their employers for talking during their work time; nowadays they are sacked for using Facebook at work.In certain scenarios, the employees are sacked because they update their Facebook status at work, capture pictures while working and also to have the guts to upload it at work. Where is the discipline of the working world going? Why are they being so irresponsible? In a book titled ‘Facebook Addiction’, the author who is an addict himself says that once when he was trying to pack up his laptop, a client called and asked him to work on a website. The moment he opened the internet browser, the first thing he did was, type in â€Å"www. acebook. com† and logged in, he promised to himself to spend only five minutes, he couldn’t resist himself and spent eight hours on the website. On top of that, in terms of relationships, Facebook addicts do not have a proper life there either; there have been reported cases in America, of young married couples who file for divorce. In a survey conducted by the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers (AAML), researchers found that Facebook was mentioned in 1 out of every 5 divorces in the United States.Some of the cases were due to lack communication between couples because one of the partners was always busy updating his Facebook status rather than actually communicating with his wife. Before marriage, messaging through the site could be fun or romantic, however post marital relationship requires commitment and real communication. These cases have proved that Facebook Addiction Disorder has been the major cause of many serious problems from school to the confinements of our home. If this scenario continues, this disorder could get into the line along serious mental illnesses.We as educators will be facing great dilemmas as the students would be more passive socially in reality, to overcome it we have to teach them in a condition where there is no active interaction between teacher and a student. However, if we stand with our hands folded, one day we might see the portrait of our society in the obituary column in the newspapers. APPENDIX A rticle 1 Title : Online Social Networking and Addiction Writer(s) : Daria J. Kuss and Mark D. Griffiths Source : www. mdpi. com/journal/ijerph â€Å"I’m an addict.I just get lost in Facebook† replies a young mother when asked why she does not see herself able to help her daughter with her homework. Instead of supporting her child, she spends her time chatting and browsing the social networking site . This case, while extreme, is suggestive of a potential new mental health problem that emerges as Internet social networks proliferate. Newspaper stories have also reported similar cases, suggesting that the popular press was early to discern the potentially addictive qualities of social networking sites.Such media coverage has alleged that women are at greater risk than men for developing addictions to SNSs . The mass appeal of social networks on the Internet could potentially be a cause for concern, particularly when attending to the gradually increasing amounts of time p eople spend online . On the Internet, people engage in a variety of activities some of which may be potentially to be addictive. Rather than becoming addicted to the medium per se, some users may develop an addiction to specific activities they carry out online.Specifically, Young argues that there are five different types of internet addiction, namely computer addiction (i. e. , computer game addiction), information overload (i. e. , web surfing addiction), net compulsions (i. e. , online gambling or online shopping addiction), cybersexual addiction (i. e. , online pornography or online sex addiction), and cyber-relationship addiction (i. e. , an addiction to online relationships). SNS addiction appears to fall in the last category since the purpose and main motivation to use SNSs is to establish and maintain both on- and offline relationships.From a clinical psychologist’s perspective, it may be plausible to speak specifically of ‘Facebook Addiction Disorder’ ( or more generally ‘SNS Addiction Disorder’) because addiction criteria, such as neglect of personal life, mental preoccupation, escapism, mood modifying experiences, tolerance, and concealing the addictive behavior, appear to be present in some people who use SNSs excessively. Social Networking Sites are virtual communities where users can create individual public profiles, interact with real-life friends, and meet other people based on shared interests.SNSs are web-based services that allow individuals to: construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system†. The focus is placed on established networks, rather than on networking, which implies the construction of new networks. SNSs offer individuals the possibilities of networking and sharing media content, therefore embracing the main Web 2. attributes, against the framework of their respective structural characteristics. In terms of SNS history, the first social networking site (SixDegrees) was launched in 1997, based on the idea that everybody is linked with everybody else via six degrees of separation, and initially referred to as the â€Å"small world problem†. In 2004, the most successful current SNS, Facebook, was established as a closed virtual community for Harvard students. The site expanded very quickly and Facebook currently has more than 500 million users, of whom fifty percent log on to it every day.Furthermore, the overall time spent on Facebook increased by 56% from 2007 to 2008. This statistic alone indicates the exponential appeal of SNSs and also suggests a reason for a rise in potential SNS addiction. Hypothetically, the appeal of SNSs may be traced back to its reflection of today’s individualist culture. Unlike traditional virtual communities that emerged during the 1990s based on shar ed interests of their members, social networking sites are egocentric sites. It is the individual rather than the community that is the focus of attention. Egocentrism has been linked to Internet addiction.Supposedly, the egocentric construction of SNSs may facilitate the engagement in addictive behaviors and may thus serve as a factor that attracts people to using it in a potentially excessive way. This hypothesis is in line with the PACE Framework for the etiology of addiction specificity. Attraction is one of the four key components that may predispose individuals to becoming addicted to specific behaviors or substances rather than specific others. Accordingly, due to their egocentric construction, SNSs allow individuals to present themselves positively that may â€Å"raise their spirits† (i. . , enhance their mood state) because it is experienced as pleasurable. This may lead to positive experiences that can potentially cultivate and facilitate learning experiences that d rive the development of SNS addiction. A behavioral addiction such as SNS addiction may thus be seen from a biopsychosocial perspective . Just like substance-related addictions, SNS addiction incorporates the experience of the ‘classic’ addiction symptoms, namely mood modification (i. e. , engagement in SNSs leads to a favourable change in emotional states), salience (i. e. behavioral, cognitive, and emotional preoccupation with the SNS usage), tolerance (i. e. , ever increasing use of SNSs over time), withdrawal symptoms (i. e. , experiencing unpleasant physical and emotional symptoms when SNS use is restricted or stopped), conflict (i. e. , interpersonal and intrapsychic problems ensue because of SNS usage), and relapse (i. e. , addicts quickly revert back in their excessive SNS usage after an abstinence period). Moreover, scholars have suggested that a combination of biological, psychological and social factors contributes to the etiology of addictions, that may also hold true for SNS addiction.From this it follows that SNS addiction shares a common underlying etiological framework with other substance-related and behavioral addictions. However, due to the fact that the engagement in SNSs is different in terms of the actual expression of (Internet) addiction (i. e. , pathological use of social networking sites rather than other Internet applications), the phenomenon appears worthy of individual consideration, particularly when considering the potentially detrimental effects of both substance-related and behavioral addictions on individuals who experience a variety of negative consequences because of their addiction.Article 2 Title : Facebook Addiction Disorder – The 6 Symptoms of F. A. D. Writer : Amy Summers Source : www. socialtimes. com â€Å"Okay, I admit it. I am truly addicted to Facebook,† said teenage blogger Heidi Barry-Rodriquez in 2007. In 2009, teen Neeka Salmasi described the social networking giant as being â€Å"li ke an addiction†. This year, a casino site mentioned that â€Å"Facebook provides the atmosphere where it is tough to walk away† in a direct comparison to gambling addiction. A quick web search and it becomes appallingly evident that we have a problem.Text messaging is no longer the biggest teenage obsession, and long gone are the days where the biggest worries for parents were celebrity crushes, massive phone bills from ridiculously long phone calls and chocolate overloads. These teenage obsessions still exist, but in today’s day and age, and in comparison to the Facebook craze, they seem rather insignificant. Facebook is taking over the world, and that’s no exaggeration. Everyone from eager-to-fit-in teens to educated business people to intrigued grandparents has joined the phenomenon, and unsurprisingly many teenagers have also caught Facebook fever.And like with many of the latest attention-grabbing trends, some teenagers can go a little overboard when participating in them. Perhaps we join Facebook because everyone has an account and, as teenagers, the need to fit in is just too great, or perhaps there’s just a special something that has helped the social networking site attract so many million people. Teenagers have a tendency to become obsessive with the ‘in’ thing and Facebook, the trend of the decade, is no exception; the question is, have we overdone in? And is there really such thing as Facebook addiction?An American psychologist believes so. In fact, he’s even introduced a new term to describe such an addiction. FAD, or Facebook Addiction Disorder, is a condition that is defined by hours spent on Facebook, so much time in fact that the healthy balance of the individual’s life is affected. It has been said that approximately 350 million people are suffering from the disorder that is detected through a simple set of six-criteria. People who are victims of the condition must have at least 2- 3 of the following criteria during a 6-8 month time period. . Tolerance: This term is used to describe the desperate behavior of a Facebook addict. They spend an increasing amount of time on the site, coming to a stage where they need it in order to obtain satisfaction or on the other extreme, it is having a detrimental effect on them as a person and their life. For the family members and friends who think they are dealing with an addict, a sign to look out for are multiple Facebook windows open. Three or more confirms that they are indeed suffering from this condition. 2.Withdrawal symptoms: These become obvious when one is restricted from using Facebook because they have to participate in normal everyday activities. Common signs are anxiety, distress and the need to talk about Facebook and what might have been posted on their wall in their absence. 3. Reduction of normal social/recreational activities: Someone suffering from FAD will reduce the time spent catching up with friends, playing sport or whatever it is they used to enjoy doing, to simply spend time on Facebook. Instead of catching up with a friend for coffee, they will send a Facebook message.A dinner date will be substituted with a messenger chat. In extreme cases, the person will even stop answering their parent’s phone calls, instead insisting that they use Facebook to contact them. 4. Virtual dates: It is obvious that things are extreme when real dates are replaced with virtual dates. Instead of going to the movies or out to dinner, they tell their partner to be online at a certain time. 5. Fake friends: If 8 out of 10 people shown on their Facebook page are complete strangers, it is undeniable: they have a serious case of FAD. 6.Complete addiction: When they meet new people, they say their name, followed by â€Å"I’ll talk to you on Facebook†, or for those who are extremely bad, â€Å"I’ll see you in Facebook†. Their pets have Facebook pages, and any notifica tions, wall posts, inboxes or friend requests that they receive give them a high, one which can be compared to that gambling addicts get from the pokies or roulette table. So someone believes that addiction to the net is a real condition that needs to be treated just like any other addiction, with care and caution, but is an obsession with Facebook a real condition, or is FAD really just the latest fad?Either way, Facebook obsessions are definitely present in today’s society and whether it is a disorder or not, something needs to be done to fix it. Forget the fancy name and look at the facts. Many people, teenagers in particular, are spending too much time online. People’s lives are being affected because of the hours spent looking at profiles and pictures. Facebook, very beneficial in some ways, is having a detrimental effect on the everyday behaviors of people around the world. Having seen the affects of too much time online firsthand, I know this to be true.Nobody c an possibly disagree when the facts speak for themselves and when an individual’s online ‘life’ becomes more important than their real one; we know that there is a serious problem that needs to be addressed. But, what to do about it? How can we possibly fix a problem that has affected more than a third of the world’s population? That is a question I can’t answer, but I do know that our parents can play an important role, well, that is if the addicted is still young enough to be influenced by their parents. There are two kinds of parents in my area, both from different ends of the spectrum.On one side we have the Facebook haters; the parents who don’t have Facebook, don’t understand Facebook and never want to understand Facebook. On the other side, we have the Facebook lovers, those who act more like their teenage children than their parents. They’ve befriended their kids online, participate in their online conversations, comment on their photos and send messages from the lounge room to the bedroom instead of just walking up the hallway and keeping matters that should be kept private, well, private. Don’t believe me? I completely understand.It definitely sounds strange. But the truth is I actually know people like this and well I can only conclude one thing: that these parents, in an attempt to be their teen’s friend rather than their parent, have also been swept up in the Facebook craze and are now suffering from a similar sort of addiction. The apple really does never land far from the tree. REFERENCES 1. http://www. healthism. com/articles/facebook-addiction 2. http://deaddictioncentres. in/news/facebook-de-addiction-social-dysfunction/ 3. http://columbianewsservice. om/2011/02/the-facebook-relapse-trying-to-defriend-facebook/ 4. http://www. sakaaltimes. com/20120418/5754739842191348023. htm 5. http://socialtimes. com/facebook-addiction-disorder-the-6-symptoms-of-f-a-d_b60403 6. http://www. tomsguide. com/us/facebook-twitter-myspace,news-10312. html 7. http://www. netaddiction. com/index. php? option=com_blog&view= 8. American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders—Text Revision, Fourth Edition; American Psychiatric Association: Washington, DC, USA, 2000 9. Lenhart, A. Social Networking