I’ve toyed with the idea, off and on, for years about severing ties to Facebook. Thoughts race through my mind regarding this idea, with increasing stress, indicating there is a problem. Thoughts, in no specific order:
- “How will I stay in touch with people?” The same way I stayed in touch with people before. I’ll email. I’ll text. I’ll call. I’ll blog. And hopefully, if they care about me as a friend, as family, they’ll do the same.
- “How will I know what’s going on?” See above.
- “It’s fun!” Really? This morning, while reading a loved one’s comments regarding the current election cycle, I became stressed, angry, and frustrated as to how someone I truly consider brilliant could reach the conclusions reflected in a FB post. Right now, I’ve a pounding headache because I chose to spend time unwisely – I knew this person was leaning in that direction, but because the topic had been avoided in conversation, I was able to put it out of mind. FB forced it into my periphery where I could not ignore it. There’s a reason our votes are supposed to be secret – so we can vote as we believe we should, without judgment or judging others.
I’m tired of the effect FB has on my attitude, on my day, on my time management, and most importantly my feelings towards others (I totally get it now, Marcelyn). I’m tired of wasting hours of my life scrolling through a newsfeed to see if something interesting has happened. I’ve decided I would rather be doing interesting things than watching other people do them.
I’m tired of wasting time I could be using to do productive things like WRITE… Years ago, I started blogging at Xanga (does anyone even remember that site any longer). I blogged faithfully, at least three or four times a week, and through that site I made several good friends. (Hat tips to Marcelyn, Tim, and Jennifer…)
After several years of blogging, I remember hearing that FB was going to be opened up to the general public (rather than just university students) and I thought I would check it out. It was fun, with silly games (does anyone remember collecting “Flair” or “Water Globes?”) It was easy to communicate in sound bites, rather than lengthy posts, and much time was spent re-doing FB pages every time Mark Zuckerberg’s minions decided to change FB layouts. The more time I spent on FB, the less time I spent on blogging/writing.
So I’m stepping back. I’m done with it. I’ll be blogging here from now on. I’ll share my blog posts for a while — I’m not sure how long I’ll continue to link to them on FB, because I really want to make the separation complete. If you are at all interested in reading what I write here, please subscribe to my blog so you’ll get it in your email box. Because at some point, I’m not going to share them with FB any longer.
And for the love of pete, please comment here – NOT FB. I’m not going back over there, so I’m not going to see your comments if you make them on FB. FB is like crack for me. If I log on, I lose minutes or hours of time that could be used better elsewhere. So I won’t be logging on to see anything.
I guess this is one good way to find out who really loves and appreciates me. I hope you’ll come along for the ride here.
A Scribbler & A Shutterbug 
I loved the pieces of flair! Enjoy blogging…you’ll definitely get more satisfaction!
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Yup. Yup. Yup.
I faithfully check here and am glad you will be writing again. Believe it or not Xanga is still there, it’s just empty. Plus they made everyone pay and then ran off with the money to upgrade the site (put it all in their Hong Kong site). I’m surprised someone hasn’t sued them over it. I got a zip file of all my Xanga posts and put them on over at Puddlingabout so I have everything I’ve written since … um…. 2004? Something like that.
I found myself too tempted to go back to Facebook so I closed my account. Gave a two week notice to everyone then closed it and haven’t looked back. So glad I did. The only negative was that everyone seems to be tying their comment section to Facebook and I refused to login again so I could comment. And then I had to think… why did I think *my* comment was so important that everyone had to know it? I’ve become much more relaxed about that.
Have I lost contact with some people? Sure have. But let’s face it, two sentences and a photo of my dinner isn’t really relationship. Not that I ever posted my dinner but you get the idea. The people who cared about me came along where I was or I went to where they were. I even have gotten back into the habit of real paper letters. You know the kind that you are finding in your mom’s house…. nothing like a letter you can hold. Much more lasting than a digital blurb easily erased.
The first month will be tough and then you get used to it. Three, maybe four years since I left? I don’t even think about it or miss it a bit. And I get to love people and not harbor thoughts about them that are just rotten due to Facebook posts. Maybe I’m shallow that I let it affect me but I did and so rather than let it rot the heart I cut off the limb.
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I totally get it now. And I appreciate your comment – so encouraging! Thank you, friend!
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I can certainly understand your frustration with FB and how easy it is to get sucked into arguments that ultimately lead nowhere. I’ve developed a pretty thick skin (which isn’t necessarily a good thing) about anything I read on FB.
A couple things that keep me coming back. There’s a certain amount of control that I can keep on FB. I can limit my activity and posts on FB. On my blog, anyone can read and repost / distort some of the more controversial things I write.
The other, as you had mentioned, is keeping in touch with both people and news. Not everyone blogs or even cares to read blogs. It may be a superficial relationship based on photos of burgers and humorous quips, but FB does help me keep track of my friends near and far.
In the end, follow your conscience. We’ll stay in touch because our friendship is worthwhile.
Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things. – Philippians 4:8 http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Philippians4:8&version=NKJV
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I am so glad you are able to discipline yourself, friend! I have discovers today just how badly FB has its talons in me. Confession is good for the soul, and I have to confess I have checked notifications a few times, but have tried to avoid the mindless scrolling. I checked the notifications mainly to see if anyone responded to my announcement. A few did – some expressing similar struggles, a few, who like yourself, have better self control than I. I am grateful that we have a strong friendship that does not require FB to survive! I still have the Messenger app that doesn’t require FB to communicate, too. 😊
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I’m proud of you, Laura! I think you’re making a great choice. One of the things I hated when people switched from Myspace to FB, was that they stopped writing the blog post type updates and I was reduced to vague snippets of people’s lives. And now I either get sucked in while looking for one thing, or have to scroll through a battle ground to find details about people’s actual lives. I have friends all over the religious/political board and not much patience for the nasty ways things are presented and defended, even when I agree with what is being said. You can hook your blog to automatically post on FB if you want to link without going. That’s what I do. Good luck!
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Ironically, I got on Facebook a few minutes ago for the first time in almost a year (someone asked me to make a change to a FB group I used to administer) and saw the link to this post. Whether to do away with FB is certainly a dilemma if you have friends who only use Facebook and with whom you want to maintain ties. But, I would say I’ve been a lot happier without it. I’ve been kicking around the idea of paring down my “friends” list to only family and the people I actually consider friends to see if that helps. I’ll let you know if that is successful…
As an aside, I work with a guy who doesn’t have a cell phone and yet he still somehow lives his life. Social media sites are not essential.
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I’m so proud of you!!! You know I weeded out my list but will probably close it too. You’ll have to introduce your little sister to this world of blogging and what to do! I love you!
We need to make a master list of passwords etc for our photo stuff that’s online!
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I will want to subscribe.
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