Two months ago, I got angry at the Facebook app, which for three days straight refused to reload updates. Instead it gave me the spinning wheel of death and ate up my time and precious battery power.
"Take that," I said in my head to Mark Zuckerberg as I pressed firmly on the app, causing the twitching x to appear in the left hand corner. "I'm done with you." Delete.
Those first few days without the social media obsession were hard. Waiting in line at the grocery store - or honestly, anywhere - I'd pull my phone out and my thumb would land on the spot that used to house Facebook.
"Oh, right," I'd remind myself. "I'm mad at you, Facebook." No offense intended to any of my 500+ friends and their newsy updates, complaints about the weather or latest vacation photos. I was making a point. Obviously.
I still received email notifications on my phone if someone tagged me or commented on one of my posts. In those instances I would log on through the web browser and get my little fix. But even that practice became less frequent as my super complicated ironclad password grew to be a pain in the ass to enter multiple times a day.
Then out of the blue, I started getting emails whenever a friend posted a photo or an update, whether I was tagged or not. After about a week of this inbox craziness, I got annoyed enough to turn off all email notifications.
I'm glad there isn't an app that can calculate how much time over the past seven years I've wasted on Facebook. Do I miss the snarky comments, BuzzFeed quizzes or advertisements? I don't know. I'm too busy reading a book, focusing on work or paying attention to the road even when traffic is at a standstill or the light is red.
I'm not ready to give up Facebook completely. We're just on a break. For the most part, I limit my usage to posting within the closed groups I'm a part of or the occasional status update. Ironically, I will post this column. Think of it as my way of letting you know that if you really want my opinion, advice or validation, you can always call me. On the phone.
