I have to carry an electronic device with me at all times. It’s expected, isn’t it? After all, my office and family needs to be able to reach me by phone, text, email or tweet at all times. I have to be able to upload photos and status updates to Facebook so my friends all know what I’ve been doing, or check-in to places so they know where I am/have been, and I don’t want to think about how much time I spend playing games.

So why do I feel like my spending all day looking at tiny screens is really making me more anti-social, instead of more social? Am I really so narcissistic that I think everyone needs to know what I am doing at all times? If I didn’t answer my email within minutes of receiving it, would the world really end? Do I really need an app to exchange words with my friends?

But every time I consider giving up my online addiction I find another reason not to. And now I’m scared not to be online, because of what others might think. After all:

• You may be a possible mass murderer if you aren’t on Facebook. At least, according to posts by Daily Mail, who cited a German magazine site as sources, claiming that neither the recent Denver-area theater gunman nor a Norwegian mass murder had Facebook profiles. (Hmm, I wonder what the CIA has to say about that theory.)
  
• HR personnel look for your social footprint before hiring, and a lack of social footprint raises a red flag because they wonder what all was deleted.
• Sites like Slate.com cover topics such as “Manners for the Digital Age” and discuss why people who are dating should check Facebook before going to bed with anyone, just to be sure they are getting a real name and the dude doesn’t already have a girlfriend, and if he does what should you say to her.
  

There are more mundane reasons to be on Facebook, of course. But let’s face it, everyone is now expected to be online, and a lack of activity is suspicious. (And you thought peer pressure in high school was bad.)

But, if you really don’t care what people think, and maybe don’t mind if the feds start a folder on you, this MediaPost article gives you several reasons why you should quit social media — including a final, perhaps most depressing, reason:

• It’s only going to get worse.