Facebook-Free Month - A Two-Week Update

As of yesterday, I had gone somewhat Facebook-Free for two weeks. The "somewhat" is a bone of contention for me because I still have to log in to do updates to the work Facebook page. In fact, not even a week into my month-long hiatus I got an email full of pictures from my boss asking if they could be uploaded to the work page.

Logging in means there are glances at the top item in my newsfeed. Other times, clicking on shortened-urls in my Twitter feed that have led me to a Facebook post or image. Then there is the dilemma whether to allow 3rd-party apps, like FourSquare or Untappd, to send my update to just Twitter or to both that and Facebook. I'd say I definitely cheated when I used Selective Tweets  to send Matt a Valentine's Day wish to Facebook by adding "#fb" at the end of my tweet.

The negative newsfeed was the big reason why I wanted to take a break from Facebook for awhile. While it feels good to not have that sitting in the background constantly, I feel like I am missing out on stuff happening in my friends' lives. My first week away, some high school friends posted quite a set of hilarious (so I'm told) pictures of Friday night fun. One of them even taunted me via Twitter,

"there are pics on FB... You can enjoy them on March 1st ha ha"

Schedules have aligned so that I've had more face time than Face(book) time with some friends lately, but those get-togethers wouldn't have happened if not for the use of Facebook Messenger. Then there are friends who live far away who I wouldn't be able to keep up with if not for the dialogue we maintain on each others Facebook posts because they're not emailing/texting/phone call types. I'm definitely missing those people right now. I even thought about name-dropping them in this post but the list is getting rather long in my head.

This morning I was reading an article online about The Pub, a popular local bar that had a devastating fire last month. In it, it mentioned how pictures were being posted on the establishment's Facebook page of the interior of the bar and of work being done. I sighed, knowing that I wouldn't get to see them for another 2 weeks.

And then I thought, "There's nothing saying I HAVE to stay off Facebook for a month. It's a self-imposed hiatus." Of course, I'm not a fan of quitting a project early. It's one of the reasons why I steadfastly continue growing my hair out even though it's at a length that's driving me nuts. So onward I plow. I suppose it's a good thing that what I miss most about not being on Facebook is how it helps enhance actual relationships I have as opposed to missing the myriad of link bait that fills the newsfeed.