Thursday, February 21, 2013

Living without Facebook

Source

I have been officially off facebook since Feburary 4.  And guess what?  I'm not missing it.  At.  All.  In fact, I've found life to be more pleasant and productive.  Facebook is one of those things that you start in on to "just see what's going on" and then you get sucked in.  Because, depending on how many "friends" and "likes" you have, it is essentially a bottomless pit; there is no conclusion to it.  So before you know it, you have wasted hours of your precious time reading about...nonsense.  

Not being on facebook has freed enough time for me to take two online nutrition classes.  I've also found more time to organize my world - to get more done around the house and farm.  I have started walking again and resumed my home yoga practice.  One difference between facebook and real activities is that I can schedule the things I want to get accomplished.  I have a definite beginning time and ending time; I know how long a particular activity will take.  But with facebook, you set out to take a couple of minutes to catch up on things and before you know it, you've wasted a good chunk of time.

And my experience is that on facebook, people don't censor themselves.  You get to see a really dark side to people - you see ugly, prejudiced, and even sometimes ignorant, comments that end up making you angry - or sad.  It changes my opinion of people - and sometimes I lose respect for them.  Who needs that.  

Will I go back on facebook?  Maybe.  But if I do, I will carefully choose what I will allow on my feed - and I'll set a concrete time limit for it, as well.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yеs! Finally something about musicas ԁe gustavo lima.


mу site: Internet Radio

EcoGrrl said...

congrats!!!! i've been off 2 years and don't miss it at all :)

Lisa said...

I have hidden a lot of people on FB so my feed is people who are more positive and like minded. I have to use facebook for my work and activism but I can see how avoiding it could be good. I would get more done I'm sure ha.

shoreacres said...

I was on FB for six weeks, and left. That was - who knows how long ago? Maybe three years. Maybe four.

The truth is, everyone I want to keep up with, I can keep up with even without FB. There are telephones, emails, real letters (gasp!) and such.

The funniest thing is, most of the people I know who are on FB complain about it all the time. They say it takes too much time, is a security risk, and so on and so forth. I ask why they don't quit. They say, "Well, everyone is there and I don't want to miss anything" or "How else will I publicize my this or that?"

It's an interesting phenomenon, that's for sure. The latest kerfluffle is FB sending emails and notices to people saying, "We notice you haven't been posting much..." ;)