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 😉
Meli
June 8, 2010Good luck with this challenge! God knows I’d be in some serious withdrawals!
sunnyglobaldiva
June 8, 2010Oh Meli, I certainly predict withdrawal, LOL. I actually felt a knot form in my belly when I clicked “Sign Out” from Facebook this afternoon… Thanks for the well wishes! 😉
Yamie
June 8, 2010Girl, I hear you! I’ve been thinking of doing the same– or at the very least removing the phone app. I thought about dropping out of fb altogether or keeping it just for business and not for personal… Haven’t decided yet whether I’ll separate business and personal or what. All I know is I want to do something different because it’s a real time-drain and I think I’m giving myself ADD with all the open tabs, etc.!
Well, good luck with your one-month fb-fast! I look forward to your future post saying “There’s Life After Facebook!”
sunnyglobaldiva
June 8, 2010Thanks Yamie! I’m sure once the withdrawal passes, I’ll have much to report on life without fb <3
Olive
June 9, 2010Have I not said it from the get go, Facebook is the root of all evil! You totally have to watch this South Park episode on it http://www.southparkstudios.com/episodes/267112/ This is how I totally feel. I was actually forced to get an account so I can monitor my company’s Facebook page and let me tell you how my hatred for the thing as grown! Can’t wait for you to start!!!;0)
sunnyglobaldiva
June 9, 2010Haha, your hatred of fb is well documented!! I look forward to watching the Southpark episode 😉
Olive
June 11, 2010OMG I had to post this because it’s totally unreal. I have access to my boss’ emails and was clearing them out while she’s traveling. So I see a Facebook email from one of our co-worker’s to her inviting her to a “Free IPad Event” on Tuesday, June 8 at 12:30am?!?!?!? and on top of that it says on the email “Chuck says, “check this out it works”! Oh shady is this Facebook that it is sending out emails on your behalf to your friends who trust and value your opinion! I thought it was evil before but this shit is fucked up!!!
Yamie
June 24, 2010I just finished Facebook rehab. I was going to do it from Monday to Monday, but didn’t get on again until today (2 days later). Other than one time when I needed to check an address where I was supposed to meet a friend (we’d made the rendez-vous before I started my fb rehab), I didn’t even feel the urge to get on it.
So what did I do with all that free time in the past week? I read… a lot… I finished 2 books and started another, studied a lot more than I had in previous weeks, took a road trip this weekend, journaled almost every day, went out with friends every day last week… I can honestly say I didn’t really miss it.
That said, I was happy to get on today and check up on my peeps, “like” a couple of things, deleted a bunch of groups I no longer follow, and send birthday wishes (some belatedly– fb is so good at keeping us updated on people’s birthdays that I’ve overlooked keeping tabs on my own). It’s nice to be back. I think I’m going to limit my fb time to weeknights or take a one-week break each month like this. How nice it was to put a little distance between myself and this little addiction… it doesn’t feel like an addiction anymore. Nice!
sunnyglobaldiva
June 24, 2010Congrats on a successful facebook fast! Don’t you feel like you had a lot more time? I loved my extra time, and my ability to better relax.