no, i'm not on the face book

Today is my first full day off of Facebook - I deactivated my account yesterday evening.  Jaws dropped across the land when I warned them of my impending departure.  You see, I was always on Facebook.  No matter where I was, work, home, car, and it was sucking the life out of me!  Even if I wasn't posting anything, it was on somewhere in the background, frequently refreshed, so I wouldn't miss a minute of what was going on.

And what was going on anyway? 

Not a whole lot.

Most of the people who I really wanted to see updates on fell into two categories: They rarely ever posted or they also posted things via Twitter, Instagram and/or blogs.  And yet I kept hitting refresh.  I'd keep getting frustrated by the things I was seeing from other people- the memes, the reposting without researching, the constant outrage, the incessant need for attention.  And I'd keep refreshing.   I'd go for periods of days without posting anything, but I just. kept. refreshing.

A few months ago, I came to the realization that this wasn't a productive way to spend my time (ya think?) and knew that I wanted to let it go completely, but I couldn't just yet.  I was in the midst of planning a class reunion and that was our main means of communication, so instead of leaving completely, I drastically reduced the number of people on my friends list by about half, only keeping my classmates, close family, and the few closer friends I wanted to try to keep in touch with.  The purge gave me a great feeling.  I wasn't done yet, but at least it was a start.

Once the reunion was over a couple of weeks ago, I was ready to leave completely.  Any responsibilities I had on there, I was sure to give to other completely competent people.  Any pages I was watching on Facebook for news or information I found on Twitter and started following them there instead.  Those friends who fell into the "also posting on Twitter/Instagram/blog" category, I made sure to follow on those other sites.  I started a new blog which I'd actually give my family the link to (as opposed to this one) to keep them up to date on pictures of events and non-events.  I put all of my contact information on my page for a few days so that people would have the time to jot it all down or add me to their bookmarks before anything I posted disappeared.

Last night, when I was sure I had done all I could, I deactivated my account.  This is no simple task.  You have to go through three different security measures and on top of it all, they throw up a page with 5 random friends on it saying how much they are going to miss you when you're gone.  Of the people they listed, I might agree with one, but seriously?  They play the guilt card?  I finally made it through the gauntlet of "are you sure"s and was free.

I'm hoping to stay off forever.  My husband and close friends laugh at me - they're pretty sure I can't do it. 

My friend sent this to me.  I thanked him for his vote of confidence.

Barring any type of emergency where I need to get in touch with two hundred people at once or the need to keep up with something going on that I can only do via that medium, I think I can probably do this.  Sure, it's going to be difficult, but I have other things that can occupy my time and I have pretty good willpower.  And hey, maybe my hubby and I will have actual conversations at night now instead of both of us sitting there, laptops on our laps, hitting refresh every 5 minutes.

THAT will be refreshing.