A Week without Social Networking

So...what was it like without Facebook, Twitter, or Foursquare for a WHOLE week?  One word: peaceful.  I love Facebook, I really do.  I feel that there are two types of people on Facebook: 1) Those who generate and post information (i.e. me) and 2) those who use it to "stalk" or look up info on other people (I won't post any examples, but you people know who you are! :-P).  My problem, however, was with how distracting all these tools became.  I was ALWAYS updating my status, ALWAYS tweeting, ALWAYS checking in wherever I was.  It's very time-consuming, and I'm sure everybody got sick of all my "feed-vomit", if they hadn't already deleted me from their feed or de-friended me.  You know what I mean, the endless posts, check-ins, etc, they fill people's feeds, which I'm sure wasn't appreciated by all lol.

What did I do instead of fb/twitter/4sq?  I was more productive at work; I rode my bike more; I friggin' FINISHED the first part of my book, all 140 pages of it!  The week was just peaceful; I wasn't constantly being bugged by emails and posts.  I don't really feel like I was more disconnected socially because of it; I was relieved because I wasn't always checking this stuff and wasn't stressing myself about whatever drama was happening online.

I will admit, however, that I did miss Facebook.  There were times when I had something to say, something to post, something I wanted to check on.  But other than that, I didn't really care.  I was trying to remember how I got by with only checking Facebook once and a while during college, and then I figured it out: notifications.  FB notifies you for SO many things nowadays, it's ridiculous.  I cannot count how many emails I get from it each day.  It took me ten minutes just to turn off each one individually!  Without those notifications, however, I only wanted to check it when I thought of something, which was maybe once a day, which is how often I logged in before.

With all that said, here's my verdict.  I'm going to become active on Facebook again, but I'm leaving all notifications off.  That way, I'll just check it when I remember, instead of when I get harassed.  Twitter, I'm sorry, but you're useless: DELETED.  And Foursquare, well you do kinda make it a competition to see who gets the most check-ins each week, so I'm backing off.  I'm going back to only using it while I'm traveling.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.  Later y'all, see ya around Facebook!

-StM