Wednesday, August 8, 2012

My Break from Facebook

 "I got in trouble for the most random things."


source
As you may or may not know, I took a few days "off" from Facebook this past weekend. I found that I was getting too consumed in other people's lives instead of enjoying my own. Time I could have spent enjoying the final month before my son turns one was instead being spent playing Words With Friends and learning all I ever wanted to know about long-lost classmates' bedtime routines.

I knew that I wouldn't just stay off of it on my own because it's become such a part of my daily routine, so I had to actually deactivate my account AND remove it from my bookmarks. Facebook makes it far too easy to reactivate (you literally just log back in and voila), so I took it out of my bookmarks to prevent an early-morning, pre-coffee, habitual log in.

I'll be very honest—it was kind of hard. Not necessarily because I felt such a desire to check Facebook, but because, out of habit, I kept opening my bookmarks throughout the day and taking a second to remember what was up when I didn't see FB there at the top. How sad is that?

I'd feel a lot worse about it if I thought this was unusual behavior, but I know it's not. Social media has become as much a part of our cultural consciousness as glancing in a mirror every time we pass one. It's just part of what we do in America. I definitely have a lot more respect for Husband's stubborn refusal to set up a Facebook page because it really is such a time suck.

Anyway. I'm glad I did it, and I'll probably do it again in a few months. Have you ever stepped away from social media or email or just felt the need to "disconnect"?

6 comments:

  1. I have to agree, Facebook is time consuming, very!! I haven't yet stepped away since I have it on y phone as well, but, I believe I should do it every couple months.

    Now, pinterest.com, that's a whole other story. ;-)

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  2. Man, I love Pinterest. It took me awhile to really take an interest, but it's awesome.

    I'm worried for my sanity when we finally upgrade our phones in a few months and join the 21st century by adding data plans. Right now, I can't get on FB from my phone, but once I can, I'm scared. :/

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  3. I can only step away from Facebook and my phone if I am super involved in something else. Otherwise, I feel like I'm wandering around missing something. I don't know if I could go a weekend without, and that makes me sad. Dan and I are too attached to our phones too.

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  4. If you don't have it on your phone now and you are having problems staying away..... You are doomed when you get it on your phone! LOL

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  5. I don't know if you remember this or not, but I had a HUGE public blowup with Bea from the old A.I. forums. It was all on me, so I apologized the next morning, and removed myself from the forums. I even went as far as to ask Steve-O to ban my IP address (he wouldn't).

    You definitely can get too involved. That said, it's very easy to forget that there is a person with feelings on the other end of the screen.

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  6. Maybe it's because I have a TRACFONE! and not a big interesting phone with all the coolest stuff, but I don't find Facebook to be that much of a timesucker. I go down and check it once in awhile, scroll through looking for something interesting, and move on. You work from your computer though, so you may find it calls you more often.

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