Why I gave up Facebook…well sort of.

A few months ago I felt like maybe it was time I gave up Facebook. I would find myself spending 30 minutes here, an hour there, another 15 later in the day, any time I had to wait (grocery store, traffic, doctor’s appointment), on social media. I bought into the idea that by checking Facebook so often throughout the day, I was connecting with people. Not surprisingly, by the end of the day, I was still feeling lonely. It finally hit me that this connection I thought I was making with my “friends” was really just me reading their status updates and looking at their pictures. It would feel like I was caught up on their life, but let’s face it, how often do we put the not so glamorous, real pieces of our lives on Facebook? Now granted, some of us do occasionally, but for the most part, we post pictures of our clean houses, our happy kids, and amazing trips that we’re on. If I documented my typical day, most of my posts would be about frustrations at work and pictures of my computer screen, or at the end of the day, me in my pjs on my couch watching Netflix. Who wants to follow that story?

Secondly, I found myself getting caught up in people’s lives and feeling envious of their grand adventures, their clean homes, their amazing families and completely awful about my life. I bought into the social media lie that everyone else’s life is so much better than mine. The truth is, my life might not be all I want it to be right now, but it doesn’t make it any less valuable than the lives I see portrayed on Facebook.

So, as part of a new year, I decided to give up Facebook for the month of January. I can already tell you that I’ve failed. I went about 10 days before I fell off the wagon, but even in those 10 days, I saw a shift in myself. When I got back on, I realized I really didn’t miss that much. Truth is, the people in my life that I consider close friends are going to contact me personally when something big happens. I also had less of a desire to stay on it for too long. It didn’t have it's usual appeal. I’m still trying to stay away from it for a couple more weeks and instead use that time to call, text, or e-mail the important people in my life. I guarantee at the end of the day I might still feel a little bit lonely because most of the people I care about live miles away, but I bet I feel more connected.