Two full weeks, people. That is how long I managed to stay off of the crack rock that is facebook. Yesterday I logged back on to survey the damage, and though 2 of my friends got engaged since I've been on, (I know, unbelievable right?!) I survived.
Here is the post-experiment wrap up.
Conclusions:
1.) Twitter is the poor man's facebook. As much as I've enjoyed getting to know the twit machine, and I'm having fun with it, tweets from celebrities about their albums coming out and their torpedos of truth just aren't as exciting as talking to your actual friends on the FB. It's helped with the withdrawls though.
2.) I have had MUCH more meaningful conversations with people since I've been off of the crack. I think it creates a false sense of closeness with the people on your friends list, and though it's great to be able to just drop them a line now and again and ask how they are, are you really having a connection? I found that I was not. In the 2 weeks I was off of facebook, I scheduled my friend Em to come visit us out here (yay!) and I also scheduled a trip to go visit my bestie from college. I talked on the phone to another girlfriend from HS for a few hours, talked to my parents, and I found that I was really listening a lot better, rather than relying on facebook posts to update me on their statuses in life.
3.) My head stopped spinning. I think this is more of a multi-tasker problem than just a fb problem, but when you have the page open all day as I do, you're getting live feeds of what people are eating for lunch, that they're mad their cars didn't start in the morning, they don't really feel good today, and how many times they've used the bathroom today. Too much information is just that... too much.
4.) I did manage to be absent while this status comment form change has occurred (now you just hit enter to post on someone's wall? Danger zone.) And what is this "Polls" thing all about? I guess I'm not in on the inside track with that. BUT. I still feel good about what I took away from my hiatus. Go ahead, Mark Zuckerberg, try to sabotage my plans. You can't lure me in with your page redesigns and quirky updates. Okay, maybe you can.
So I went back to the FB yesterday and found that I actually only had 5 private messages, 1 friend request, and 7 comments. Not too shabby. I figured it would be an all day affair, trying to damage control what I had missed out on. But honestly, I'm happy with the hiatus. I think I'll go back to it, but only in baby steps. Once a day to start. Just a little taste of the crack pipe doesn't hurt, right? Or does it?
No comments:
Post a Comment