#35: Stay off Facebook for a week (part 1 of 2)

Yesterday was my day for logging off. I made a small announcement to who knows who, and I didn't even wait to see if anyone would comment on it. And then I promptly deleted the application on my phone and the bookmark on my browser. It was over in a minute. Totally anticlimactic, as it should be.

Now that I think of it, though, my professional career has never been without the presence of social media. I remember checking Myspace on my lunch hour and sometimes throughout the work day. At that point it was mostly to look at photo albums of my college and high school friends and to pick a new song to play on my profile.  And then came Facebook, which my boss told me he was sure would be the next big thing - all the students were using it. Now I check Facebook while waiting in line at Target, before going to bed, throughout my work day – it’s even part of my job. Since I joined over 5 years ago, it's been part of my life - about 2,000 days worth.

What can I expect from spending just 7 days (maybe more) away from it?

I can’t expect to be able to live as though it doesn’t exist. Life has adapted to the ways of social media so much that I think that expectation is unrealistic. For instance, no one is going to mail me the doubles of their photos, let alone email them to me. They can just wait until I get back on Facebook and let me find them at my leisure.

Therefore, I expect to feel out of the loop.  On the surface level, at least.  I am not anti-Facebook; I enjoy reading my friends and family’s postings, despite how exhausting it can seem at times. And I feel the need to say that none of them has ever posted about going to the store to get cereal, which seems to be the type of post that everyone loves to complain about.  

To counteract that a little, I expect to be in more intentional contact with people. That would be nice.

I expect to get a little extra work done. Not much, because I’m pretty good at finding other ways of wasting my time.

I expect not to use the word “post” as much, except in referring to something that happened after, or the mail (unlikely), or someone's place, or something resembling a pole. This might result in more intelligent conversation, but let's not make too many assumptions.

I can't really expect much, and maybe I won’t get anything out of this. But it’s a fun experiment, and I’m all in.

Part 2 will be my summary of how it all went from here.