As many of you know I was away on a 7-day trip out of the country and had no wireless or Internet access. This forced me to try and detoxify from my facebook application addiction. Well, like most Hollywood detox & rehab programs, it just did not work.

I found myself wanting to use facebook even more. I missed the news feed information that comes from my network of friends. I missed conversations in groups. I missed invites to events and applications. I missed some important news. I was jonesing for a facebook fix. I needed my drug; I was more hooked than I thought.

I thought it would be easier to walk away from facebook. I was wrong.

Before the fire hose of applications was turned on; I could live without facebook very easily. I joined facebook in December of last year and its value to me was fairly minimal. Not many of my peers, business contacts or friends were on facebook. It’s use case with limited applications provided nominal value to me.

What has happened to me in the last 90 days (when new applications arrived) is a fundamental shift in the way I communicate. Facebook has rewired my brain and the way I perceive and expect to participate in online communication and consumption. I have changed the way I listen to data streams of information. I have changed the way in which I consume media. I have changed my behavior significantly in the ways that I interact with users (people, friends, family clients, peers, leaders) and the way I publish content to this same group. Facebook has facilitated me meeting like-minded individuals around specific topics.

Well all that has changed as more and more of my real world friends, family, business peers, clients and contacts have joined. The “network effect” and usefulness of the facebook platform and specifically some applications; have become inherently more useful when more people participate. It is the “wisdom of the crowds” / “increased data flow” that really hooks me.

Now don’t misinterpret this as me thinking facebook replaces everything else. It does not. But what it does allow me to do is to plug in, communicate and listen more efficiently than I previously could. It has become my business/people connection tool, Rolodex, publishing, consumption, and syndication and aggregation tool for most of my online life.

I have one final observation to share. Facebook is changing the face of search; I search far less. Why? Because my network of friends do this for me and share relevant information that I never even knew I would find valuable. When I do search (outside of facebook) I tend to share info with my friends as well. This hearkens back to a point that I made several years ago: “that eventually search will become less necessary; the internet and nodes of knowledge will feed me relevant information with out me having to think about it”. This particular facebook use case trend will continue to evolve.

I never want to be cured.

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