How many of you have the Facebook reflex that is, whenever you open the Internet your fingers automatically type into the world’s biggest social network? Before you know it, you’re liking someone’s status update rather than checking your homework on Blackboard like you intended. Admit it–we’ve all done it.

The problem with this (other than the initial distraction) is that we use it as an excuse. Facebook has become the digital version of crack, so we all just assume it’s not our fault when we get sucked into its trap. The truth is that saying “no” to Facebook is as easy as saying “no” to chocolate cake after dinner. Difficult, I know, but doable.

 Every day, we tell our friends that we meant to finish the reading for class last night, but Facebook drew us in again. We laugh it off and place no real blame on ourselves. Facebook is a whole different kind of procrastination, so it’s not the same as just sitting around picking our noses.

I’m here to say that it is the same. Right after eating the chocolate cake, do we shrug it off and blame the cake simply for existing? No, we curse ourselves for our lack of self-control.

It takes the same kind of self-control to send our mouse up to the magical “x” button and log off.It’s the belief in the addiction that forces us to continuously refresh our news feeds, rather than accomplishing what we originally intended.

How much do we really care if someone has commented on our photos in the past five minutes? Is chatting with our friend about the recent Glee episode really that important?

Does reading our Facebook “report card” really trump checking our real grades online?

We don’t really care about all of these things, but our minds are telling us we do every time our eyes light up at a brand new red notification button. We don’t think we can avoid clicking on it, but we can.

When we’ve wasted an hour aimlessly searching the site, we blame it on the fact that the little button showed up  and not that we consciously decided to click on it. That’s right, it was us who chose to stay online, not the addictive aura that surrounds our computer when we sign on. Because of this, we can’t go on making excuses with the Facebook trap. We might as well laugh at ourselves for sitting around and staring at a bunch of pixels.

The Facebook trap is merely a figment of the imagination. By simply hitting “log off,” we can rid ourselves of it forever.