efff you, facebook

Don't get me wrong, I think Facebook can be dead useful for all kinds of things, like posting pictures of my cat, stalking friends I don't see, looking at pictures of babies, and organizing events.  Lately, however, I realize how much time I spend staring at FB instead of say, writing on this blog. Or talking to the friends whose posts I stalk. Or doing anything else besides staring at a damn computer screen.

But the straw that broke the camel's back was the onslaught of ridiculousness following the George Zimmerman verdict. I'd been staring at FB posts with unease for some time. After all, I'm friends with lots of people with varied opinions about the world (which is great), but sometimes those opinions are ill-informed, poorly argued, or simply posted out of fear and hatred. The recent posts amplified all that, and the aggregate was simply more than I could bear.

With disgust, I shut down the FB window and informed L of my intention to ignore FB for the next two weeks. I'll pop briefly every so often to make sure no one messaged me or posted to my wall, but for the most part, I won't post anything, I won't interact with folks there, and I won't read posts.

My point here is not to elicit any come back to facebook!! replies but to work out why I feel so down on FB lately. It may be that I need to dump people off my list, or perhaps I'm realizing that the often unhealthy constant checking of FB is not conducive to the more positive mental well-being I'm trying to cultivate.  Perhaps I'm seeing how much time I waste passively consuming information rather than directly communicating with friends or even actively writing on this blog.

It's an experiment I hope to document: how has my life improved without FB stealing my minutes. Or without the annoyance of wanting to scream at people I normally love interacting with. Or being bombarded by constant reminders about how horrible the world can be.

Whatever the reason driving me away, I depart with a stamp of my foot, a finger raised aggressively in the general direction of the world.  So long FB. You kinda suck right now.