I’m not sure whether to be amused or upset by this story, but I thought it was worth a quick post.  It seems that a petulant 19 year-old in Florida took the law into his own hands when he was told by a Starbucks customer that he couldn’t use the customer’s laptop to check his Facebook account. 

So what did this genius do?  What anyone would do, of course.  Wait a little while and check his account from home, you ask?  No, that would take too long.  And since we live in a society of instant gratification, he decided to snatch the laptop and run out of Starbucks.  Needless to say, he was apprehended in the parking lot and arrested.  Now he’s been charged with robbery (which is a felony). 

I guess when you need your hit, you need your hit.  And you won’t let something as trivial as the law stand in your way.  Just ask any drug addict.  Is Facebook really that addictive?  I haven’t yet experienced any tremors or nightmares from failing to check my various e-mail accounts, but maybe I’m just not hip enough.

While this guy is clearly an idiot, it does portend ominous things for the future.  Facebook junkies.  Social networking lifers.  Will they have entire wings in drug rehab centers or prisons for people like this?  I know it sounds ridiculous, but with social networking sites like Facebook growing by 4 to 5 million users a week, the power of the medium can’t be underestimated. 

Some people will obviously take it to the extreme.  Some always do, but it does make me wonder.  And I wonder what this guy will do when he can’t check Facebook from his prison cell.  The withdrawal pains may be incapacitating.