Operation: Deprivation

Day 22: DO NOT GET ON FACEBOOK ALL DAY

I’m a recovering Facebook addict. I opened a Facebook account almost 2 years ago, but it wasn’t until I hit my 300 friend milestone last year that I realized I was obsessed. I changed my status update daily. I challenged friends to Scramble games. I sent friends Good Karma, Growing Gifts, and Lil Green Patch plants. And yes, I took ALL of those silly tests (just so you know, I look like Reese Witherspoon, I act like I’m 15 years old, and I was a jock in high school). Facebook became one huge time suck.

So I decided to change my Facebook habits. I unfriended about 60 people. I stopped updating my status. I stopped searching for people. I stopped sending virtual gifts and playing word games. But I still lurked in the shadows, reading everyone else’s status updates and viewing people’s pictures. Then the old habits crept back in. I started playing the word games by myself. I started updating my status about once a week (and felt so loved when people asked where I’d been). I returned gifts, wrote on walls, and posted the newest circulating status update with my bra color (really, how did that help with breast cancer awareness?).

Now, although my interest in Facebook in nowhere near where it was a year ago (I’d prefer to call myself a fan rather than an addict), I still check my account frequently. But would I really miss anything if I didn’t? I’ll find out today, my self-proclaimed No Facebook Day. Let’s hope no one shares any earth-shattering news on their status updates until I’m back online tomorrow!

Well, it’s past 8 PM, and I haven’t signed into my Facebook account all day!  I feel oddly liberated.  I didn’t even miss it, and it almost makes me wonder if I could live without it.  Could you live without Facebook?  (Visit my poll on left…interested to see how many FB addicts are out there.)