Browse Tag: facebook

Facebook Rehab: The halfway point

Hi readers 🙂

I recently blogged about my intention to cut out Facebook for a month. I thought I’d share a few side-effects now that I’m at the halfway point.

1.) iPhone battery lasts longer. The battery on this wondrous phone is awful, but it’s much less awful now that I no longer screw around on Facebook all the time.

2.) More efficient use of daily time. I used to wake up before sunrise, but then over coffee, I’d start Facebooking. Somebody please, cue up your favorite rendition of “Who Knows Where the Time Goes?” because that’s the very question I used to ask myself whenever my time disappeared into the Facebook vortex. I gladly report that this is no longer a problem.

Facebook vortex *

3.) Less anxiety. When I was cruising facebook aimlessly, I had guilt sitting like a rock in my belly. This is no longer the case and I gladly report that I am less anxious.

4.) Self-pity. Yeah, I know–not a desirable side-effect. I’d feel frustrated sometimes, like that painful, mouthwatering sensation that overtakes your body when you’re not allowed to take a potato chip from the plate of Lays sitting in front of you. One night, thanks to my TiVo, I did a 24 marathon and finally watched the last 6 episodes of the series. As the final minutes played out and I cried with Chloe O’Brian and watched Jack Bauer fade away, I actually felt sorry for myself that I couldn’t whine about the end of my favorite show on facebook.  I thought, ‘Lose facebook AND 24 in the same week?’ Anyway, I got over it 5 minutes later. Sometimes my husband sits near me, logs in, and says something like, “Ohh, so and so posted her first pregnancy picture.” Insert itch-that-can’t-be-scratched sensation. How many times did I want to bitch to the facebook community about Italy’s crybaby tactics on South Africa’s fields? Many times, but I engaged in animated discussions about it with my husband and father instead. Sidenote: How crazy was Italy vs. Slovakia??!

5.) True face time. I admit that I’m generally over-addicted to my iPhone. The apps, the email, the games, and worst of all, the facebook. Now that I use my phone a lot less, I’ve become keenly aware of people who are plugged into their smartphones–I’m talking zero eye contact during a conversation so long as the damn phone is in their hands. I readily recognize that this is a growing epidemic of rudeness, and I renounce this awful behavior for my part. I vow not to look at random info on my phone while talking to people. This new self-imposed rule has enabled me to converse meaningfully with people in a pre-smartphone way: no distractions, complete focus. Of course, I owe my friends and loved ones that courtesy anyway.

Bottom line: Life was always good, but these days, life is better; I’d be lying, however, if I said I didn’t miss facebook.

Photo Credit: “Facebook is Scary” by Kevin Saff

Experiment: Facebook rehab

Hi readers.

Chances are, if you’re a close friend of mine, we’re probably friends on Facebook. And if you’re my friend on Facebook, you know that I spend plenty of time there. Recently though, my addiction has begun to weigh heavily on me. One of my best friends had given up Facebook access as a sacrifice for Lent 2010, describing the website as “crack.” I’ve come to see it the same way. I can no longer ignore or deny that I’m addicted to this website. One of the worst things about it? That’s it’s not even just confined to being a website anymore–it’s on my phone too. For God’s sake, it’s EVERYWHERE. So I check in “real quick”–in quotes, because it’s most often never quick–ALL the time. The most common letdown is that usually, it turns out that nothing exciting has happened in the last 120 seconds (the amount of time that has lapsed since I last looked).

Of course, the very nature of Facebook is designed to keep you hooked. Hyperlinks everywhere, in the form of random faces that you want to click on. Quite often, before you know it, you’ve got twenty tabs open and you’re making mental notes to return to this person’s profile and that person’s picture album. Yada yada yada, so goes facebook’s never-ending story.

And the games? Forget it. I made the mistake of starting to play an online facebook game called Restaurant City, a Sims-esque restaurant-focused game. The “goal” of the game is to build your restaurant, decorate it, hire people and keep them fed, and master all of the food and drink dishes that you serve. The problem is that this game is an online form of soap opera–there’s no end in sight; the goal is to never reach an end goal. This game keeps sending more and more novelties to settle and colonize my mental landscape. It’s become quite the time suck.  How bad has it gotten? This bad: I created a whole secondary profile just to play this game. Fake Me’s restaurant was supposed to be a place from which Real Me could siphon off whatever I needed. But Fake Me wanted more. Fake Me’s restaurant is now more ornate and grandiose than Real Me’s restaurant is. The energy, time and focus needed to run Fake Me and Real Me’s restaurants is staggering.

Long story short, it’s all just too much for me now and I’m about to short-circuit. So I’ve decided to cut it out for a month. I know it’ll be hard–I love seeing what everyone’s up to, checking out friends’ and relatives’ pictures, and making my restaurant pretty, but the truth is that this one website keeps me from being engaged in what’s really going on around me. I check in too often when I could be doing more productive/meaningful things. So I’ll be deleting the phone app for the month, and I’ll block the website on my computer temporarily. Facebook is one of the main places where I advertise my blog posts, so I’ll have to find some way around that little issue–I’ll probably just click “Share on Facebook” directly from my blog posts so that I’m not tempted to log into my account, but I sincerely hope that my friends keep on reading anyway.

So if you need to reach me, you can do so outside facebook. I look forward to reporting from a more peaceful, self-aware mindset  😉

Words with Friends

Hi all.

If you’ve got a mobile device of some sort that can run the Words with Friends application, then there’s a chance that you’re as hooked on this game as I am. WWF is essentially Scrabble by another name. But since it plays out in the Wild West (my own name for the internet and/or wireless network that connects us all globally), you’re playing matches against many people whom you don’t know. Sure, you can also play against your friends or acquaintances–one of you has to search for the other’s WWF screen name and then initiate a match. But you can also look at the app’s Facebook page where users often post their screen names. Or you can do like I do and let the app search for a random player who happens to be online at the same time as I am (I found my favorite opponent this way; I play with him/her almost exclusively).

Let’s face it–it’s not easy in this day and age to find an ideal opponent in a game that makes decent use of one’s mind. By ideal, I mean someone who’s as intelligent as you–or more so, hence encouraging you to get better–and someone who’s no-maintenance. We lead busy, complicated lives and live in homes with “open floorplans” where all our crap is laid out for all to see. Today, inviting someone over is no longer receiving them in your pretty little parlor room for a round of chess or bridge; it often means putting laundry away and mopping the floors and emptying the sink and preparing a meal: stuff you might not feel like doing right this moment.

Enter WWF. You make your move on the board at your convenience; your opponent makes a different move at his/her convenience. You check in whenever you’d like and play according to your own schedule. Matches can go on for days. How lovely and low-key. Whenever I know I’ll be traveling and won’t be able to check in or play for a few days, I tell my one opponent over the chat function. We never carry on long conversations, but we always wish each other safe travels and congratulate each other on off-the-chart point combinations.

I’m a decent player. I don’t cheat–apparently there are apps where you can plug in your letters and the app will tell you the best point combination, don’t see the point in playing this way. I am, however, the occasional “plugger.” On the WWF Facebook page, it reads the following: “according to the Texas Rangers baseball team, a plugger is a player who, without penalty, throws down made-up words at the board until one of them sticks.’ I’ve done this, and I argue that it’s NOT cheating since it’s coming from my own brain. If this word I’ve never heard of gets accepted on the board, I promptly look it up in the dictionary and add it to my vocabulary.

You’ll find a bit of everything and every kind of sportsmanship in the WWF corner of the Wild West: obsessive players, not-too-bright players, ultra-smarties, and sore losers who will resign the game if they see you’re doing much better than they are, or who accuse you of cheating if you put a word on the board that they’ve never heard of. Of course, a game or sport–even a seemingly innocuous one like Words with Friends– is just another arena in life where we display our best or worst qualities.

Sick, and loving it

Hey all! Sorry I’ve been away–life called me to participate in certain must-be-there occasions that kept me from updating lately.

Anyhow, I’d like to give a shout-out to my good friend Elena for alerting me to an incredibly fun new website. She was watching a Jimmy Fallon interview with wonderful renaissance man Alan Cumming, and Cumming mentioned his current involvement with the site < itsasickness.com > . One of the many reasons I adore my best friends: they know me all too well–she sent me a late-night email urging me to check it out, describing it as a cool site where you can join groups for things you are obsessed with, and then you can share ideas/info with other people who are obsessed with it too. itsasickness describes itself with the following plotline on its Facebook fanpage:

it’s not about illness, it’s about sickness. your sickness is what makes you …extraordinary. that thing you geek out about, that is what makes you amazing.

itsasickness then celebrates our sicknesses and the most hardcore sick people with short films;

Alan Cumming is the itsasickness emcee.

itsasickness: obsession-based programming for an obsessive-based culture.”

*By the way, the all-lowercase writing is their thing, not mine. Just wanted to re-create their voice accurately.*

I went over to the site and my jaw dropped. What a fabulous idea for a website! People who are obsessed with things just like me, creating little worship corners for these things, exchanging information and inspiration about these things. In some ways, it’s sort of like Twitter, but more interesting for me because it has an intense focus. While Twitter is fueled more by stream of consciousness, itsasickness is fueled by cultivated obsession. Of course, the two sites serve different purposes, but I can’t help but draw a slight comparison since itsasickness is constantly updating in real time, and you can “follow” different members.

Cumming is essentially the emcee of the site, although I’m not quite sure what that means yet. In any case, he seems to be the public face of the site. You can create a profile, and upload a pic to personalize it. There is a “lounge” which is the part of the website that features “people like you geeking out about their sickness; whether it’s hula hoops, Doctor Who, or politics.” If you click on the “lounge” link, you’ll be directed to a page with celebrities talking about particular obsessions that they have, i.e. actor Jason Bateman has a video on there and he talks about how obsessed he is with classical music; actress Marisa Tomei talks about how she’s obsessed with hula hoops. My favorite page though is the “see all obsessions” page where you see an A-Z list of all the obsessions compiled so far. I think of it as a list of kindred spirits I haven’t met yet: Hello fellow human being, allow me to introduce myself–I’m someone who is as obsessed with cast iron cookware as you are!

You'll find plenty of fellow Trekkies at itsasickness.

I’ve already started creating obsession groups. I’ve made three: one about Amadeus (my fave film), one about alligators (among my top 3 fave animals), and one for squash fruit (to address my obsession with pumpkins and various heirloom squash). Then I panicked because I found out you can only create five–kind of a bummer because I had already made a mental outline of about 20 obsession groups I wanted to create. Oh well, I’ll just have to wait for some kindred spirits out there to create them.

I can add interesting articles, pics and videos related to each of these groups, and others who decide to share my obsession can also contribute info. If I see someone else’s obsession group that I like, I can join that obsession. For instance, I love luxury travel, so I joined the ‘luxury travel’ obsession that Alan Cumming created. If I come across a picture of a particular luxury hotel abroad that I’d like to share with the group, I can click on the ‘add content’ button on the group and post it there.

I think this is one of the most innovative social networks I’ve ever seen. Cumming mentioned that after joining an obsession group for truffle oil, he discovered a lot of new info about the product thanks to others who shared useful articles on the magic culinary substance. His experience represents the extreme loveliness factor of this website. It’s social networking with a focus on common ground, and could become a place for a genuine sharing of interests and information. Hey, you never know–that guy or girl who loves Madagascar Vanilla Red Tea just as much as you do may end up being your soulmate.

Sick, and loving it

Hey all! Sorry I’ve been away–life called me to participate in certain must-be-there occasions that kept me from updating lately.

Anyhow, I’d like to give a shout-out to my good friend Elena for alerting me to an incredibly fun new website. She was watching a Jimmy Fallon interview with wonderful renaissance man Alan Cumming, and Cumming mentioned his current involvement with the site < itsasickness.com > . One of the many reasons I adore my best friends: they know me all too well–she sent me a late-night email urging me to check it out, describing it as a cool site where you can join groups for things you are obsessed with, and then you can share ideas/info with other people who are obsessed with it too. itsasickness describes itself with the following plotline on its Facebook fanpage:

it’s not about illness, it’s about sickness. your sickness is what makes you …extraordinary. that thing you geek out about, that is what makes you amazing.

itsasickness then celebrates our sicknesses and the most hardcore sick people with short films;

Alan Cumming is the itsasickness emcee.

itsasickness: obsession-based programming for an obsessive-based culture.”

*By the way, the all-lowercase writing is their thing, not mine. Just wanted to re-create their voice accurately.*

I went over to the site and my jaw dropped. What a fabulous idea for a website! People who are obsessed with things just like me, creating little worship corners for these things, exchanging information and inspiration about these things. In some ways, it’s sort of like Twitter, but more interesting for me because it has an intense focus. While Twitter is fueled more by stream of consciousness, itsasickness is fueled by cultivated obsession. Of course, the two sites serve different purposes, but I can’t help but draw a slight comparison since itsasickness is constantly updating in real time, and you can “follow” different members.

Cumming is essentially the emcee of the site, although I’m not quite sure what that means yet. In any case, he seems to be the public face of the site. You can create a profile, and upload a pic to personalize it. There is a “lounge” which is the part of the website that features “people like you geeking out about their sickness; whether it’s hula hoops, Doctor Who, or politics.” If you click on the “lounge” link, you’ll be directed to a page with celebrities talking about particular obsessions that they have, i.e. actor Jason Bateman has a video on there and he talks about how obsessed he is with classical music; actress Marisa Tomei talks about how she’s obsessed with hula hoops. My favorite page though is the “see all obsessions” page where you see an A-Z list of all the obsessions compiled so far. I think of it as a list of kindred spirits I haven’t met yet: Hello fellow human being, allow me to introduce myself–I’m someone who is as obsessed with cast iron cookware as you are!

You'll find plenty of fellow Trekkies at itsasickness.

I’ve already started creating obsession groups. I’ve made three: one about Amadeus (my fave film), one about alligators (among my top 3 fave animals), and one for squash fruit (to address my obsession with pumpkins and various heirloom squash). Then I panicked because I found out you can only create five–kind of a bummer because I had already made a mental outline of about 20 obsession groups I wanted to create. Oh well, I’ll just have to wait for some kindred spirits out there to create them.

I can add interesting articles, pics and videos related to each of these groups, and others who decide to share my obsession can also contribute info. If I see someone else’s obsession group that I like, I can join that obsession. For instance, I love luxury travel, so I joined the ‘luxury travel’ obsession that Alan Cumming created. If I come across a picture of a particular luxury hotel abroad that I’d like to share with the group, I can click on the ‘add content’ button on the group and post it there.

I think this is one of the most innovative social networks I’ve ever seen. Cumming mentioned that after joining an obsession group for truffle oil, he discovered a lot of new info about the product thanks to others who shared useful articles on the magic culinary substance. His experience represents the extreme loveliness factor of this website. It’s social networking with a focus on common ground, and could become a place for a genuine sharing of interests and information. Hey, you never know–that guy or girl who loves Madagascar Vanilla Red Tea just as much as you do may end up being your soulmate.