The following originally aired on KQED-FM.

By: Bianca Brooks

When I joined Tumblr, a photo blogging website; I was in awe of all the “beautiful” people. I too wanted to be “internet famous”, to be appreciated for my beauty. I honestly believed with nice clothes, a cool camera, and a little luck, that thousands of Internet users would love me too.

It was an escape that let me be the person I felt I could never be in real life. My own faults and insecurities were hidden behind a computer screen. The praise I never got from my family and peers created the need for compliments, “likes”, and “reblogs”.

The problem was not that I enjoyed the attention, but mistaking this praise for validation of my beauty and intelligence, instead of taking it at face value for what it really was: The Internet.
But how could I resist slipping into a world where it’s so easy to “add” who loves you and “delete” who doesn’t? Photoshop and Picnik gave me that whiter smile I could never get with my nonexistent dental coverage. I said I was born in Hollywood instead of Orange County to sound more glamorous.

The following originally aired on KCBS.

By Sam Fuller

I don’t have a choice when it comes to social networking – it’s either Facebook or nothing.

There are other social networking sites out there, but they aren’t really an option – none of my friends are there. And email is useless since nobody I know checks it more than once a week.

I was late joining Facebook, I only signed up because everyone else was on it. Even my mom was on before me. Yet even though I was one of the last of my friends to join, I may be the first to quit.

What I don’t like about the site is the attitude – the people who run it think they know best. Even when it comes to privacy. I saw founder Mark Zuckerberg on TV saying that the reason his site is popular is because people want to share more. But I don’t think everyone wants to share their profile information with online marketers, which is what happens now.

When I look at this kind of “data mining” rationally, it probably shouldn’t creep me out. But it does. It’s like having someone looking over my shoulder all the time.

So congrats Facebook -- you’ve trapped me! You’re creepy, but to delete my account would be the end of my digital life.

I've broken up with Facebook officially only once. But we've definitely had a love-hate relationship from the beginning--at first I refused to join up, then I surrendered, only to become one of those people who laid it (mostly) all out there.

In my inexperienced Facebook days, my profile picture was of me and my then boyfriend. Imagine 6 months later, when after a hard break up, I realized we had to break up all over again on Facebook. When I deleted our relationship status, the literal icon of my heart broken showed up on my news feed. Immediately I was bombarded with messages from concerned friends demanding to know what had happened.  Then there was the prospect of un-tagging all the photos of the happy couple. Instead of dealing with it, I deleted my account.

There I was, breaking up with not one, but two obsessions, and stuck without access to a phone during my month long homestay in Costa Rica. The lack of communication was too much to take, and 2 weeks later, I logged back on.