Facebook is a Leech!

 

I read this article yesterday, and it highlighted some of the things I’ve been thinking for quite some time now. You may have thought some of these things too.

When I created a Facebook profile on November 7, 2007, I thought it would be a great way to keep in touch, especially with far-away friends, and it has been… with a few drawbacks.

I agree with the article, in that, I feel my creativity and my writing have plummeted since I joined Facebook. The more time I spent there, the less time I spent creating. The article writer is right: Why write a page full when you can sum it up in a Facebook status or a 140-tweet? You can include the best parts and leave out the rest, because we all (most of us) would like to present our best for everyone else to see and hide everything else behind a digital screen. Or we use it to rant and complain, and who wants to scroll through their feed to read a bunch of negative stuff? That’s what we have the news for, right?

Also, while I have been able to stay connected with friends who live all over the world, I feel like I am missing real, human interaction. Like she says in the article, we’re “friending” people we haven’t seen or talked to in years, even adding people who we weren’t friends with in high school, simply because we knew each other way back when. Facebook gives us a shallow connection, even with those who live nearby, and it makes us keep coming back for more, because it doesn’t satisfy our craving for connection for very long.

I, like this writer, used to write letters to friends often and used to spend more time on phone calls to catch up. Since texting, Facebook, Twitter, and all the other outlets out there, the more substantial communication and interaction has suffered. We have difficulty expressing emotions and thoughts with our mouths, and we can hardly get together without having our phones close by, almost as a crutch, just in case there is a lull in the conversation.

So… for these reasons, I think a break is needed. An experiment of sorts. I’m hoping I’ll spend my “Facebook time” (which, honestly, is a few minutes here and there ALL day) on fostering real relationships, blogging, and creating.

 

I will be deleting the Facebook app from my phone on Friday, July 11th and will not add it back until, at least, August 12th, which is my daughter’s first day back at school. I will only post to my Casey Carroll Art – Facebook page, Instagram, and Twitter for business purposes. Here and there I may share from those to my personal Facebook page, but will not be checking my personal page.

I’m hoping that this month-long break will bring about increased creativity and deeper relationships.

Do you have a Facebook? Have you ever taken a break or thought about taking a break from it? How did it go? What did you learn?

Casey 🙂