Day 10 Without Facebook

Ten days without Facebook. Am I surviving? Absolutely. Possibly even thriving.

I do have a confession to make however. I never realized how many times throughout the day I "write" Facebook status updates in my head. Something funny happens and, in my head, I am immediately thinking of how I will word my witty post for the masses to read so that they, too, can enjoy the hilarity of my day. I was appalled at myself until I told Mike about it and he says he does the same thing. We both agreed that we feel a little disgusted with ourselves for having let a social network become so embedded in our thought processes.

I'm not sure what I have filled the time in with since giving up Facebook. I think my laundry might be more caught up than it normally was before. I've applied for a few more jobs online. I've read the news. I've had conversations with my husband about things other than what was going on with some person I "kind of" know on Facebook. I've written more actual paragraphs, some even with a pen and paper.

So overall I think life has been good. My husband has always said that "it takes 21 days to give up a habit" though, so we'll see if I am still happily Facebook-free in 11 days or if I am curled up in a corner, shaking, typing on an invisible keyboard in front of me because I just need to tell the world (you know, that big world of 194 friends I have) that the service I received at lunch was horrible, or that my commute to work took forever, or that I'm getting my nails done today.

I'm pretty sure the world can live without that news.

Day 1, No Facebook, Thoughts on "Friends"

So, the experiment begins...Day 1

I deactivated my Facebook account today. Actually, I deactivated all three of them. Scary to think I had three, although one I never really used and another was my "military wife" account. But still...slave to social networking much?

There are people on Facebook I will miss, and there are certainly train wrecks that I will miss watching. There are "friends" who will probably not even notice my absence. It's a sad realization, but events of the past few weeks had already shown me that some people who I thought were legitimate, real life friends really aren't. Life is too short to waste time with friendships that only exist when it is convenient for the other person, but not when I need a friend.  

I've noticed a trend recently in people. So many seem to live in a universe that revolves around them, and the people they consider "friends" are only that when they can do something for the person at the center of the universe. They don't consider the other person's feelings, only their own. They certainly don't take into consideration whether what they are saying is hurtful to anyone else. I'm sure at some point I was that person as well.

Now, imagine each of our universes as a circle. What I want for myself is also convenient for Friend A, therefore our circles overlap in a happy way. Many other Friends overlap with my universe as well. But Friend A begins to get so caught up in her own universe, always talking about herself and her own life and accomplishments. She no longer thinks of my life in any way. Our circles are no longer the perfect venn diagram, overlapping symbiotically, yet we are trying to maintain the friendship. That is Facebook. Connections are made, "friendships" created, at a time when our circles overlap. But when those same circles become disconnected, we still hang on. It makes no sense.

So I am disconnecting my circle from 194 others. Those who know me well and wish to can still keep in touch with me. I gave everyone my email address a couple of days before deactivating my account, so hopefully those who wanted it wrote it down. Those who have been hanging on to our friendship even though it is past its prime can rest easy in the knowledge that they didn't have to deal with the awkwardness of unfriending me. I am looking forwarding to working on building more meaningful friendships through real correspondence and conversation, insteal of voyeuristic socializing through a computer screen.  Who knows?  Maybe I will start a trend and save a million postal workers' jobs!  I doubt it, but it's a nice thought.

Look Up.

Do I really have 194 friends? Can someone even be called "friend" if the only interaction I have with them is through my computer? Can life be lived without social networking?

Truth?  

I don't have 194 friends. I don't even truly know that many people. But I have 194 people who, for whatever reason, want to know what I have to say on Facebook.

Can someone I've never met in person, and who I only interact with online, be called a friend? Absolutely yes. I know people in just this way who have been more supportive than people I was born and raised with.

Can life be lived without social networking? Well, I am about to try. Starting Saturday, May 10th, I'm shutting down my social networking accounts. Instead of looking at my iPad every evening, I'm going to look at my family. Or maybe the television. But I'll do it with my family.

This should be interesting.