Facebook is its own distraction

I'm not a huge fan of social networks, but Facebook is one site I do actually use. Well, last night when I logged in, I realized that they have taken things too far.

They launched Facebook Chat, which is essentially an instant messaging service, but all done within your browser window when signed in to your Facebook account. A bar appears at the bottom of the screen, with all the friends that are currently logged in, and you can view their status and easily minimize & maximize popup windows with your conversation.

As if browsing through the site didn't distract you enough, enter Facebook Chat to distract you from ACTUALLY USING FACEBOOK.

I gave up instant messaging my junior year of college (cold turkey, been sober for 4 years now) because it distracted me from everything else that I wanted to do, and I deemed "everything else" as more important than having pointless conversations that only create stress trying to keep up with all the windows and dinging noises.

So who's really at fault? The social networks who encourage and provide the platform for the ultimate distraction? Or the people who don't have the discipline to say no to it?

I've made my decision, and disabled the chat feature. So that pointless conversation we were going to have tomorrow night... you'll just have to write on my wall instead.