Facebook is the third most addictive thing in the UK, with only coffee and chocolate ranked ahead of the social networking site.

In a study of 3,000 under-30s, commissioned to coincide with the launch of 'Rehab' on Living channel, the top 10 most common addictions are tracked down.

Notable in their absence are cigarettes and alcohol – which won't please Oasis and may suggest that a little denial was involved in the survey.

The top 10 modern addictions in the survey are:

1. Coffee
2. Chocolate
3. Facebook
4. Beauty products
5. Checking bank statements
6. Junk food
7. Celebrity gossip and reality TV
8. Exercise
9. Retail therapy
10. Blackberry/iPhone

(TechRadar)

As the article states, smoking and drinking are very notable by their absence! But some are downright strange.

Does checking bank statements count as an obsession? I'm assuming here these are people logging on to their bank or credit card websites, rather than sadly carrying around the latest paper statement as that doesn't magically update itself. In these recessionary times this just seems to show how close to the bone many people's accounts are. We all know how happy banks are to smack you in the mouth with a £20 bank charge for going overdrawn a few pennies.

Very funny that numbers 6 and 8 somehow go together - get fat, get slim. Junk food is designed to be addictive. One thing about my living in a third world (sorry, developing) country is that there isn't much junk food - mainly because junk food is more expensive than real food. There's a message there.

Numbers 4, 7 and 9 all seem to fit together. I don't understand the obsession with celebrities - what's wrong with your own life and friends? Do you have any that are not on Facebook? These so-called celebrities add nothing to the betterment of humanity and are mainly actors or musicians - what's so interesting about them? What I find really disturbing are those not infrequent news stories of lunatic fans stalking soap actors and exacting revenge for something they did on TV! Hello, it's make-believe! Not real!

As for me, the only thing on the list I'm guilty of is perhaps too much coffee... and certainly not at $5 from Starmuck's, have my own Moka machine, thank you.

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