Faceless Book

If you remember, last year I figured with the advent of Facebook and other social networking sites, that the traffic to this blog would trickle to a stop. I was willing, therefore, to dispense with this blog and stick to family connections via Facebook. However, there was a large hue and cry from my small, but loyal, family fan base to keep this blog alive.

So I did.

But, I continued to visit Facebook quite a bit. Kept track of people and friends I had not communicated with in quite some time. It was fun. I'd look at their posted family pictures, their videos recorded on their phones, their small updates about liking mashed potatoes... important stuff.

Then I gave up Facebook for Lent and an interesting thing happened... I didn't miss it. At all.

Sure, for the first day or so I did, but after a week I felt a certain sense of relief. For, previously, I had found myself having to live up to some sort of self-imposed Facebook etiquette... if I respond to one person's reply to my status and not another person's reply... am I offending the second person? When I looked at family pictures from friends and relatives, I felt obligated to leave a note somewhere so they'd know I stopped by. If someone doesn't reply to my postings, do I have to reply to theirs?

And the volume... the amount of people on Facebook was becoming unwieldy.

First, people don't edit themselves. People uploaded every picture they took, even the duplicate out of focus ones. Why? I don't know. They don't have to. But, there they are!

Second, the reality is that I don't have the time to check out everyone's picture of every event in their lives. I don't have time to update and comment and send pokes and flair and surveys and notes and God knows whatever else I could virtually send to my fellow Facebookians.

Prior to Lent Facebook had become some sort of weird family obligation. So, giving it up for Lent forced a break and a re-evaluation.

By the end of Lent I hadn't missed Facebook at all. Sure, I missed chatting with some of my family and friends, but the evolving invasive entity known as Facebook had lost its priority in my life.

Instead, I read the Bible. Yeah, go figure! Me... reading... the Bible! We, as a family, spent more time actually conversing with each other instead of spending time on various computers within the same household virtually connecting with other people in cyberspace. I know, so retro!

During Lent we were even without the internet for a week! Yup, bad router or what have you. If it weren't for online banking, I found that not having the option of surfing the internet made life much easier, simpler and less busy. Instead, we watched Christian movies, played baseball and started the P90X exercise program.

So, now that Lent is over, sure, I'll login to Facebook on occasion. But, it will be far less often. Instead, I'll stay here in the blogosphere, chatting to myself and the diminishing number of family/fans who come to visit... happily Faceless.