It has been 22 days since I've logged into Facebook. I deactivated my account mid September to get away from the cyber addiction and to get more involved in the real world. My boyfriend was going to be away for three weeks with no contact so I decided I wanted to keep busy and active to distract myself from missing him and to help the time pass by more quickly.
It was surprisingly easy to drop this habit. The main reason being, that I picked up another social networking site to fill my habit. Twitter. I spent the last three weeks being very productive in my own life, and the format of Twitter allowed me to tweet a quick blurb about what was going on that day and then move on and do it, rather than sit on Facebook and waste three hours before I realize what time it is.
Facebook appeals to the inner stalker in all of us, that natural human curiosity. You can literally click through pages of random people's photos and updates for hours. With Twitter, other people's lives seem less interesting, and it has allowed me to enjoy the past three weeks much more.
I've even crossed a few things off of my NYC bucket list. I've spent more time with friends, traveled a bit, gotten more sleep, done more cooking and baking at home, made some craft projects like painting coat hooks and hanging them by our front door, and even had time to watch more sports, news, debates and other random tv shows that probably killed brain cells.
So, maybe I did simply substitute one form of social media for another, but I think it did allow me a much needed break from caring more about what's going on in other people's lives than my own. And if that's the only benefit I received, focusing more on my life, then I'd say that's a pretty successful hiatus, wouldn't you?
I should be back on Facebook at some point tomorrow. I reached my goal number of days with ease and could go longer, but I've had quite a few people texting me wondering why I've disappeared off of Facebook and I have an upcoming event that I want to invite some friends to. Facebook isn't all bad. There are plenty of positive reasons to use it, including sending mass event invites. However, if you ever start to feel like you spend more time online than you do with real people in person, why not take a hiatus? See what it's like to go out and not check in everywhere you go. See how it feels to make plans for every night of the week, even if one of those nights your plan is to cook dinner at home, and one night your plan is to bake something new, and one night is to catch up on sleep or call an old friend. There's so many different things we can do and experience. So many opportunities we fail to take advantage of because we waste so much time wondering what everyone else is doing with their lives, that we forget to truly live our own.
Go out and find yourself. Fall off the grid for a bit and simply have some fun, have some you-time, relax more, party more, experience something new, work toward a goal, do something. Anything. But don't waste your time in front of a screen living vicariously through others. Go live!
Xoxo
