Facebook Addict: The Good, The Bad, And The Outright Ugly

Facebook is perhaps the most popular social network of its kind. With over 500 million active users, Facebook allows us to communicate with friends and family, upload and share photos, view media, start and join groups, create fan pages, and much more.

Then there's the dating applications that often allow free memberships.

Seriously?

Oh, yes. With Facebook, users can take the simple term "communication" to another dimension. Can you become addicted to Facebook? Absolutely, you can.

Of course, this isn't necessarily a bad thing, unless you're logged in from the time you wake up, until three the next morning. That actually might be an issue.

But if you're like some of us (whether that means you're updating your status hourly or logging in once a day to check your notifications) then you think Facebook is pretty cool.

What you might not know is the fascinating story behind the evolution of Facebook.

Okay, so it's a really long story. A story full of college life, heartbreaking relationships, and legal battles that began in late 2003.

Mark Zuckerburg, the founder of Facebook, was a brilliant student at Harvard University. A social outcast, he sought ways to gain acceptance. He hooked up with his friend, Eduardo Saverin to be responsible for hosting the site and paying the server costs.

The site was created and was categorized as a limited-liability company (LLC)under Florida state law. Unfortunately, events quickly spiraled out of control.

Zuckerburg and his friend Dustin Moskovitz relocated to California to resume the project while Saverin went to New York for an internship. The two founders conflicted after Moskovitz ran unauthorized advertisements for personal benefits.

Facebook needed more money and investors began lining up. But Saverin resisted to sign Facebook as an LLC under Deleware law. Zuckerburg offered to fly him to L.A and he refused. Saverin needed to be cut.

Zuckerburg linked with Sean Parker, co-founder of Napster. Parker proved himself as reliable. Parker was also intelligent, and cunning. He explained how Zuckerburg could cut Saverin from the company.

A Deleware corporation was created, which gave money to everyone but Eduardo.

A lawsuit was unavoidable but Zuckerburg still signed an agreement to release all intellectual property. Mark Zuckerburg soon became Facebook's new director.

The team sued Eduardo who then sued Zuckerburg for using company money for his own expenses. Eduardo cooperated with three Harvard students who claimed Zuckerburg stole their idea.

Finally, a settlement was reached. Eduardo was restored as co-founder on the site and he agreed to stop slandering Zuckerburg.

But Eduardo, who was taken advantage of, won bigger in the end. His investment is worth more than a billion. He doesn't even have to participate further.

Legal battles, indeed.

Yes, it's very true. On more than rare occasions, Facebook relationships can spark.

But this doesn't mean simply dating.

If you're girlfriend is on facebook, you can send her a request so you can both publicly display that information. The key word is request. Relationship requests have to be confirmed by the person receiving them, otherwise people could simply post a relationship status to someone they may have never even met.

Thank goodness for that.

Then you have your dating apps such as Zoosk, Match, and Mingle. They weren't really created by Facebook, but they're apps that you can access directly from your page.

If you think its worth it, go ahead and try them out. While some people think they work out, others think they're useless. Find out for yourself.

But please, use Facebook to at least try to enhance your life, not completely take over it.

Facebook is generally a fun social network to play around with, at least according to most people. Like all social networks, there is a facebook mobile version that you can use with your phone. That includes Androids, Blackberry's, and virtually any type of smartphone. However, you might have noticed that you can't capture the full benefits from a phone as you would with your desktop PC.

Too bad, since typically, we'd rather pull out our HTC as opposed to switching on a Dell.

Nonetheless, facebook is clearly worth all the trouble that was taken to create and successfully maintain.

Yes, it's definitely possible to become addicted, to some extent. But there's really no need to stress out over it. When you visit a site that shows how someone's life was destroyed by Facebook, just think that it's that person's own fault, no one else's.

So next time you're logged into Facebook and you're Mom's screaming upstairs, "It's midnight, get off Facebook!" just tell her, "Mom, LMS!"

That means, "like my status", just in case you didn't know.