It's been four weeks since I made the statement above on Facebook. Four weeks since I logged into my account. Four weeks since I commented on or Liked a friend's post.
I thought it would be hard to be away from Facebook for the whole month. After all, it's been a part of my daily life for over seven years. It's helped keep me in touch with friends from long ago and far away. It was especially helpful during the first six months or so after we moved to Maryland. On the flipside, it's also been a colossal time suck and the source of internet exhaustion (especially from reading too many political articles and stories about social ills).
After I deleted the app from my phone and iPad, it was surprisingly easy to avoid FB. That proved to me that I tapped the app out of habit and boredom more than anything. I thought I would have to install a browser app to avoid the FB site on my computer, but I didn't need to resort to that. Once I got out of the habit of checking FB on my phone (which only took a day or two), it simply and easily transferred to getting out of the habit on my desktop. Done and done!
But now that my month-long hiatus is over, I'm not exactly sure what to do. In this day and age, having an established web presence seems to be a given and is often expected. Because I'm currently not working, I use my various social media accounts to stay relevant (as much as I can) in my field of interest (children's literature). In fact, I used to get a lot of information pertaining to the children's literature world through FB, and I feel like I'm now out of the loop. Granted, even though I wasn't checking FB last month, I was still on Instagram, twitter, and tumblr, so I probably didn't miss too much.
That said, the point of me getting off of FB was to use my time "more wisely" and not waste it clicking on one link after another. Even though I want to stay up-to-the-minute with authors, books, and events, I think it's equally important for me to use that time to actually read. I know that balance is the key, but I've always had a hard time with that, and that's precisely why I went cold turkey with getting off of FB.
For now, I've decided to continue my hiatus, and check FB only if there's something going on that I need to check on (direct messages from friends, a crucial world event, etc.). I don't think it would be wise to deactivate my account ... but I will unsubscribe from those pesky daily emails from FB reminding me to log in!
