9-31-11 Facebook free, 6 days and counting

I quite facebook 6 days ago

Facebook is a great invention, but it’s very easy to get addicted. I only had about 40 friends, but they were mostly all climbers, so there were always interesting photos to enjoy. I only “friended” people I knew and climbed with in person. I saw cool pictures from all over the world on facebook. It was endlessly fascinating…but therein lies the problem.

If I was bored, or unmotivated, I would surf facebook. It’s a whole fascinating world in there that opens up to the world wide web. It was a black hole of wasted time. I saw the writing on the wall, and realized I needed to quit, I do have a website, after all.

In the six days I’ve been off facebook, I’ve added at least 2 hours of productive time to every day. I do enjoy writing. It clears my mind, and having the freedom to write in long form, as opposed the the “twitter/facebook” form of writing, is awesome. Most of the “communication” I was doing on facebook was in the form of a couple sentences, so it was practically meaningless.

By getting off facebook, I am removing another reason to get the new iPhone. Or, on the flip side, I may just get it to reward myself for not having facebook…still can’t decide. I love the idea of getting a slim dumb phone and gluing it to the back of an iTouch. It would be a “poor mans iPhone”, without the data contract. I like the idea of anything that simplifies my life, and saves me money at the same time.

I never, ever use data on my 2 year old droid. I don’t surf the web, I don’t check my emails, and I really don’t need to use the navigation function, though I sometimes do because it is convenient. They make paper maps that work almost as well.

Here is an interesting article about  smart phone addiction.