Facebook-specific thoughts.

Whenever I've met up with friends lately, one of the first questions they ask me is something along the lines of, "So how is life without Facebook?"  What a good question.  How is it?

It's been about three weeks since Nathan and I started our detox, yet our life has been so bombarded by holidays, traveling, weddings, and parties that I've barely had time to sit down let alone bemoan my Facebook deprivation.  Here is a snapshot of my last 6 weeks:

Week of Thanksgiving: Drove to Wisconsin & back to spend time with my family.

First week of December: 2 meetings at St. Kates & 1 bridal shower in Des Moines.

Second week of December: 3 meetings at St. Kates, 2 concerts, 1 final due, 1 Christmas shopping trip (I know that some of these things are "fun" things, but they are still not down time!)

Third week of December: Hosted 1 party, went to a different party, went to a concert, 1 trip to St. Kates, 1 final due, 1 panic attack over not having time to make or send Christmas cards.

Fourth week of December: Drove 1 hour to spend time with Nathan's family for Christmas for 4 days, Drove 4 hours to spend time with my family for Christmas for 2 days.

First week of January: 1 New Year's Eve party, 2 house guests, 1 wedding and Bachelorette party in Des Moines, 4 days of wedding planning, and 2 more house guests at the end of it all.


So the reason I haven't been writing dramatic blog posts about how hard life is without Facebook is I really haven't had too much time to miss it, yet.  But I do have some thoughts, so far. 

So, if you must know: How is life without social media? 


  I secretly kind of love it. 

• I don't know what memes are trending. 
• I don't know the Sherlock spoilers. 
• I don't know the details of my high school classmate's lives (The ones I don't care about, not you, Carol.) 
• I don't feel obligated to post pictures of my daily doings. 
• I haven't had pangs of jealousy and frustration over other people's amazing lives. 
• I've been reading more books.

On the other hand: 

• I haven't seen Carrie's wedding photos.
• I'm sort of stressing about being invited to events and not knowing about them. 
• I don't know how to contact some people whose email address I don't know. 

And if it weren't for these three things: photos, events, and easy communication, I could probably deactivate my Facebook right now and never go back.

But I still don't want to be THAT person--the one that's inconvenient to get ahold of, the one you have to email your vacation photos like they're your grandma or something.  The point of this detox wasn't to see if I want to keep my Facebook or not.  Hopefully at the end of all this I'll develop a healthier relationship with social media--an ability to not gain so much of my validity and meaning from a website.  We'll see how the next few peaceful weeks go.