Taking a Break from Facebook

It seems that I may have a running theme concerning social media when to comes to this blog. It's not really a surprise. I am part of the millennial generation. I have had internet access since I was four and I own a smart phone. So, not talking about the internet and social networking would be like ignoring (more than) half of my life.

I like the idea of constantly being connected to information. I can check the news from my bed in the morning. I can check my email at any time so I don't have to miss out on something important. I can Google anything that comes to my mind that I want to know the answer to. What I don't like is the constant feeling that I have that I should be checking my social networking sites because I might "miss" something. FOMO as the kids call it these days. Obviously, this isn't true. Sure, people communicate incessantly through social media, particularly Facebook, but if there is something that happens online, it will still be there several hours, days, and weeks later. And if it is removed for some reason, someone will have gotten a screen shot of it.

But, I still get that urge to just check on everything every few hours. Maybe it's out of habit from when I was in school and if I were bored in class, then I would check Facebook or scroll through Twitter. If I was working on an essay or homework assignment, I would watch YouTube videos to break up the work time. Now, I don't have class to go to or assignments to do, so my time spent on those sites increased because, well there's nothing else in between them.

I began to notice this when there would be days that I spent about 90% of my time online, whether it was Tumblr or Twitter or YouTube, I was spending too much time on them. I needed to stop spending all of my time on there when there are other things that I could be doing that probably would be a (slightly) better use of my time. So, I started to cut back. I don't obsessively check Twitter, I don't watch as much YouTube, and I limit Tumblr to once every few days.

The one problem that remains is...Facebook. I mean, it is such a problem that while writing this post, I have checked Facebook about 3 times. I tried to cut it down to checking it once a day, but that doesn't work. I have it on my phone and even when I removed it from my home page, I still scroll through my apps to get to it. I thought about originally cutting out all social media to one day a week, because usually when I go to check any of them, I immediately find myself on Facebook. Obviously, that would not work seeing as a blog is a form of social media, plus I shouldn't punish everything else because of Facebook. I like occasionally looking through GIFs on Tumblr. Live tweeting shows or sporting events is a lot of fun. I find more entertainment on YouTube than on television.

But, with Facebook, there does not seem to be anything that I get out of it other than occasionally reconnecting with a friend. All I get out of it, is a lot of time wasted. So, I am going to try to take a break from Facebook. I am only going to check it once a week. If I "miss" something, well then I miss it. Oh well. I am hoping this declaration on my blog will keep me in check. Either way, I am sure I'll have an update on this endeavor in a few weeks.