Down With Facebook ... Sort Of!

For all of it's positives, this modern age of technology kind of blows.  I realized the other day after, a few visits to Facebook, that I have rarely ever seen or read anything there that has changed or bettered my life in some way.  Occasionally I'll have a good interaction or read an interesting story, but for the most part, it's full of baby photos, blurry pics of food, and you telling me how bad traffic was.  It's always been like this, too, it's not new.  So why did I start hating on Facebook so suddenly?  I think I just hit my saturation point with it.  I got tired of seeing folks I like posting infographics with incorrect information on them, or photos of them at dinner, all blown out and red-eyed.  It did nothing for me but inflate my ego, because as I hit "Post" I knew lots of folks would be seeing it, and that's real exciting!

Facebook is information overload at its most pointless, and the amount of time and thought that we put into crafting our little posts and typing out our inside jokes could be much better spent on improving ourselves.  Think about the last time you were in a group, with people you knew and enjoyed spending time with.  Now, remember how many times you checked Facebook - not out of interest, but boredom. I guarantee that most of you have done this, and it's really stupid.  We have given up personal interactions for small status updates.  It's like our very own tabloid paper, updated and current at all times.  

I've been pulling away from Facebook for awhile now, favoring Twitter instead, which is much more freeing and simple.  In fact, I enjoyed not being connected so much that I have done something new - left my phone on silent over the last 3 days.  Yeah, it's true!  My phone has not rang once.  Sure, I've missed calls and gotten text messages, and yet the world still kept spinning somehow.  Those people that called me I called back, and those who texted me I responded to, and that was that.  After a day, I felt like I was in control.  Of what, I have no idea, but at least I didn't feel like a slave to my phone.  Not that I was on it all the time, but you know the feeling you get when you see someone calling and you are not sure if you should answer it, or if you do you have to go outside first.  I suggest you give it a shot - put that thing on silent for a week and only check it when you have time.  I bet you'll love it.

Who knows - maybe you are different than I am, and you don't have these issues of checking Facebook and your phone all the time.  I sure did.  It just became a habit.  The thing to do when you didn't know what to do for 2 min in traffic.  I hated it, but I never really knew how much until recently, when I went cold turkey.  Things have slowed down as a result.  I dunno, things just feel better.  If you try it, let me know if you felt the same.