You see, I started facebook in 2007 and in many ways haven't looked back. Sure, I was skeptical at first. I was even a mocker of the concept. In fact, I saw the early adopters of facebook like those obsessed people who play wizardy role playing games online. You know the type. They spend nearly 6 months out of a full calendar year earning points so they can have a bigger sword to slay the ogre-dwarf. They have a community, oops, a guild, that they chat with on their fancy headphones deep into the early a.m. hours. You see, I saw facebook like that. It wasn't what everybody was doing. It was what sensitive people who needed validation were doing. But I was wrong!
In the blink of an eye, I turned around and soon facebook was the tickle-me-elmo of the internet world. Everyone had to have a facebook account. People were abandoning myspace by the droves. In fact, if you even had a myspace account people thought you were either A) out of it, or B) kind of creepy.
I never wanted to be labeled as either of those things, so I jumped off of myspace and explored the world of facebook.
I can't remember for sure, but I believe my first post was something sarcastic like, "I'm important. You should know what I'm doing, who I'm doing it with, and what I'm doing it for at all times." I thought my comment was kind of funny, but in a matter of seconds, I realized that what I said basically slammed everyone's posts! Nobody thought it was funny. I was making light of what other people had created as their whole world. This was their life. Facebook was their community. People actually cared what other people were doing at all times. In what felt like an instant, I could tell my comment made me a loser in the facebook world!
I had to change my tone fast! I started to be more serious with facebook. I started to post what I was doing...and what I wasn't doing. People seemed to care. I liked that people cared (still do). I would check my facebook like my 5 email accounts (we all have at least 5 don't we?). I would look once a day. This worked for my 150 friends. It was enough. But soon, I began adding more friends. Each day was like a class reunion. Nay, it was like a school reunion. Nay, it was like a life reunion. I was looking at people that I hadn't seen in years. And they were looking at me. They could see whatever I posted and I could see what they posted. It was like a glorious stream of randomness that in some strange way made sense...kind of. I at least tried to make it make sense because to everyone else it seemed to make perfect sense.
In 2009, my facebook world changed again. I got an iphone. Now facebook was in the palm of my hands all the time. It was so much easier than being at a computer. Now I could check facebook all the time! Yes! It was just what I always needed. Let's face it. Many apps on the iphone get boring (I-AM-T-Pain excluded), but facebook never gets old. Every day there's a fresh slice of randomness from people all over the place who I call my facebook friends (my guild).
So, all the above to simply say that here I am today, 4 years later, taking my first 30 day hibernation from facebook. Why do I call it a hibernation? Because it's not permanent. It's for a season.
Eventually, I'll wake up from my slumber from social media, but for now I want to be lost in a world where I am not looking at my phone 35 times a day. I want to focus on something without feeling I'm missing something. I want to see how I would invest the time I am given each day without the allure of facebook. I want to wake up and not feel like I need to see what everybody else did with their evening. I want to focus on stillness. I want to focus on simplicity. I want to write something substantial. Mostly, I want to cleanse the mind and see the world from another angle. It's funny, but by going facebookless, I feel like I am heading into the antique roadshow. It's as if I'm going to a place of old-timey, Norman-Rockwellesque, mystique. Who knows what I'll find? I have no clue. But I feel like it will be well worth the journey. Almost like finding that little old lamp that has been sitting in grandmas attic that someone was going to throw away only to find out that its worth $10,000 dollars.
I'll post on this blog as I go along. I will not post this blog on facebook as it defeats the purpose of hibernation. I will write my thoughts on a world without facebook, what's good about facebook, what's not-so-good for me about facebook, and probably process things without really knowing what I'm trying to process. I am not trying to say that facebook is not a worthwhile endeavor and I am not critiquing folks who are on facebook 24/7. This is for me. Maybe you think a facebook hibernation is crazy - that's ok! Maybe you think it's what you need to experience too - that's ok! If it is the latter, join me. I'd love to hear how you come out on the other side of your hibernation.
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