My husband had been saying for awhile that he wanted to get rid of Facebook. And then one day, he did just that. I couldn't believe it. I couldn't imagine living without Facebook.
I love being able to keep up with everyone's lives via Facebook. I'm a social person living in the middle of nowhere, so new status updates all day long keep me feeling "in the loop". I also love being able to use Facebook as a survey tool. Sure, I can do a Google search when I have a question, but I don't trust advice from strangers as much as I trust the advice of people I know.
I use Facebook as a news source too, as I don't read the paper and rarely watch the news on television. I also keep up with Iowa State Basketball via Facebook; reading articles, watching interviews and videos of our dancing coach and players :)
Most importantly though, Facebook is how I complete my social calendar. My mom groups and friends post events on Facebook and so many others use the Facebook invites for parties/gatherings. If I didn't have Facebook, I'm afraid I would miss out on so many things! I follow a lot of local places/events for kids and that's how I find out when something fun is taking place that I might want to take the kids to.
All of this being said, I was a little jealous of my husband when he dropped Facebook. I knew that he was going to have more time on his hands (not that he spent that much time on Facebook) and that his life wasn't going to be at all affected by anything on Facebook.
So after I did some thinking about all of this I decided to start decluttering my Facebook account. I deleted about a third of my friends and about half of the pages I "like". In addition to decluttering, I woke up Friday morning and decided to have a "no Facebook Friday". It was tough at first, but by the end of the day I really hadn't missed it. Saturday morning I woke up and decided, "what the heck, let's go for 2 days in a row". This one was really tough because I wanted to follow all of the ISU/Kansas stuff, but I made it!!! TWO entire days of no Facebook!! It was....amazing!! Refreshing. I didn't even feel the slightest bit "out of the loop". In fact, when I woke up Sunday morning and decided to go ahead and check Facebook, I only saw two things I really cared about missing. The rest of it was just unimportant to me this time. Even today I have only been on twice and just briefly both times.
The most impressive thing to me about staying off Facebook for 2 whole days is that my cell phone kept a charge for 41 hours!! On a normal day, my phone needs charged by mid evening. At the end of the first "no facebook" day, I still had 60% battery power left. I decided not to charge it that night and it didn't lose power until after 11pm the next night. I was amazed...and realized what a ridiculous amount of time I spend on Facebook. I can get so much more accomplished now that I'm not using it as a means to procrastinate all of the things I should be doing.
As I was feeling liberated by not being so absorbed in Facebook, I did some decluttering of my email account too. I unsubscribed to nearly every company I get emails from and finally got my inbox from 300+ to under 50....it feels so good!!
You all know how much I love to declutter my house, but decluttering my electronic life has been just as exciting!!
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