Detox!

I'm going to admit I love social media! I became a social worker and therapist largely because I'm curious about other people and like to know what's behind the curtain. Social media affords me the opportunity to peek behind many curtains, and see what's going on with others.

Smartphones offer this availability 24/7. On my lunch break. During halftime. In the middle of the night when I wake up. Which is awesome, except that if I'm trying to attend to 800 people, I'm missing the ones right in front of me.

I signed up for Facebook in November 2004, during my first term at OSU. Since that time, the longest I've ever gone without checking it was the 2 weeks in 2005 I was in Germany.

So, I decided to try an experiment. I decided I wanted to put forth more effort this Advent into making it truly a preparation for the coming of the Christ Child. What better distraction to eliminate than Facebook.

I put up a post about it on the evening of 12/4, and changed my profile picture to let folks know how to contact me if necessary.  The rest of this blog post will serve as a log of what my Facebook detox is like.

12/5: I wake up feeling smug and proud for having deleted the Facebook app from my phone last night. I simultaneously experience a strong urge to check how many "likes" my last post received. I realize I'm contemplating this as I am struggling to even move toward getting out of bed.

12/6: After a 5k in the morning, it's a lazy sunday. I'm looking for excuses to log in out of boredom, but successfully resist. I had assumed I'd have serious FOMO by this point, but so far all my urges have simply been related to boredom. We'll see how it goes tomorrow when I return to work!

12/12: Had a bit of withdrawal, maybe?  I don't feel especially anxious or constantly pining to check facebook, but when I think about looking at it and seeing peoples' holiday related posts and whatnot, I do get curious and experience urges to check it all out.  Still successfully resisting.

12/13: I was reading a buzzfeed article, and saw a link to what I thought was another article... but it was a Facebook page. I clicked away, but not until I saw that I had SEVENTY TWO notifications. I mean, it's only been 8 days, and I haven't been on so it can't be replies and likes to recent comments and updates! This seems unusual, but I'm sure it's good commentary about just how much we interact this way!

12/15: Ohmygosh.  So many things I want to post on Facebook today.
-IN LIKE FLINT!!!  I made it into my fantasy league playoffs!!  First stop: playing my second cousin Charles.  I'm undefeated against him so far, for 2 seasons.  I'm not sure if that's a good thing.  JUST WIN BABY!! Shivakamini Somakandarkram!!!!
-I've been registered independent since 2005.  Today, I registered as a Republican for one reason: vote in the primaries for whoever has the best chance to defeat Trump.
-As such, I'm watching the GOP debate.  Surprisingly, my favorite is Jeb Bush, however, he seems to be the most moderate so that's not that surprising.  If this were SNL's Celebrity Jeopardy, Carson would be French Stuart ("Threeve...") and Trump would be Turd Ferguson ("Heh.  It's a funny name.").

12/16: Urge of the day: Checking to see how many notifications I have! Successfully resisted. Giving into that kind of temptation is a slippery slope. I am kind of starting to have FOMO. Whose big news am I missing out on? Trying to re center and be more present to those around me. Why is this getting harder instead of easier???

12/22: Now this is getting easier.  Maybe it's because things have been so busy.  I have a vague sense of missing what's going on in the world of facebook, and am realizing I'm often using it as a main source of local/national/world news update.  Maybe I should start seeking out the news on my own.  In any case, I actually don't necessarily feel that my life is all that much better without facebook, nor do I think it's worse.  We'll find out in what ways these things change on or after Christmas when I log back in!  To be honest, I feel pretty proud of myself for resisting so far.