Facebook-Free for 43

Day One:

I've given up Facebook "for Lent," though it isn't really for Lent at all.

The truth is that my friend Kristina posted that, although she was not Catholic, she was taking on her friend's challenge to give up Facebook for the duration of Lent. I was somewhat taken aback when I read the last sentence of the brief status update on the popular social networking site: "see you in early April!"

I sat looking at my little iPhone screen, blinking perplexedly. I wondered at first, is this a joke? And then I thought briefly, maybe I should do that.

The thoughts rushed through my head. No posting photos? That thought kept echoing in my brain. No posting my thoughts! That would be tough, too. My friends! How would I keep in touch with my friends? The answer was phone calls, text, e-mails. You know, real, quality one-on-one communication.

I then thought about how much anxiety it was causing me to think about giving up this little website for so many days, and that's when I realized just how beneficial it would probably be to to do so and take a step back. In the long run, forty-some days goes by quickly, and is nothing. All it would require of me is self-discipline, something I am practicing having more of these days, anyhow. It would be a big change, but if everything else in my gosh-darned life is changing, why not this, too?

So here it is on day one without Facebook. My fingers rove compulsively over my iPhone's face in search for that pretty little blue "f" button that would instantly plug me into the lives of all of those around me. But it was gone, deleted temporarily from my little digital device.

I wake up to Facebook, I waste my day to Facebook, I walk from class to class with Facebook, I go to bed with Facebook. It'll be interesting to discover what I see and who I meet when my face isn't buried in an application as I walk though these FORTY THREE days of no Facebook.