Well, I’ve done it. I’ve gone and accepted a challenge to go facebook free for an entire week! My first thought was that moving the icon and disabling notifications may not be enough. I may have to uninstall the app from my smartphone entirely. My very next thought was that I should post status update about my progress! It took a moment to realize the folly there, I can’t do that because I can’t post to Facebook! Then I remembered that the entire point of my original assertation that I could indeed forgo my social media addiction was to open up time for other pursuits. I used to be a pretty productive person, I’ve been known to work a 40 hour week, attend school full time and raise a house full of children, all while maintaining a small farm, keeping a blog and still managing to have some semblance of a social life. What happened to that woman? The sheer ease and convenience of technology combining social media and my smartphone is what happened. It’s insidious in how gradually it takes over your life. For me, it was a nursing baby that did me in! Being tied down in a position that makes it most uncomfortable to try to type or write, having a child who won’t let me read because she prefers to grab and throw my book, combined with the lack of quality programming on TV these days, pretty much left me my smartphone for entertainment during those long nursing sessions. Well you can only play so much Dragon City and Mafia Wars, eventually I was forced to amuse myself on social media. Don’t judge me, it beats staring at the wall! Point is, it occurred to me that reviving my poor neglected blog would be a pretty productive use of the time regained by staying off of Facebook. Which pretty much explains what I’m doing blogging at 1 a.m. I’ve been meaning for a while to get back in the habit of writing again. No time like the present! I think everyone should take a week off Facebook and keep track of how much more stuff you get done without it then you do with it. Seriously, there should be a national stay off of Facebook week! My sister bet me a German chocolate cake that I couldn’t do it! Luckily she didn’t bet me that I couldn’t stay off of technology altogether, therefore I get to blog and tweet about my progress! Maybe we can make it a hashtag. #stayoffoffacebookweek. Why not?
Angela Harrison 