Then, a few weeks ago, the Lord started telling me that it had become my god. While I didn't worship it in the same sense as I worship the Lord, it had become the place where I went when I wanted to share something, get something off my chest, talk about things...instead of to Him! And as always He gave me confirmation...so over 2 weeks ago I took a hiatus from my wall. I get notifications in my email about people who post to me, and have chosen to respond only to messages, deleting most of the wall posts after a quick scan. (Previously I was compelled to go to FB to respond to every one of them.) I have a couple of Facebook groups, and belong to a few other groups on FB. But it was The Wall that had taken God's place in my life. I continued - and continue - check on the groups and even participate once in a while.
It has been interesting. Where I thought I would miss it all terribly, I haven't missed it at all. I'm talking to my Lord a LOT more now about what's on my mind or in my heart, instead of posting them to my wall. As light social outlets I use Pinterest and Twitter (which I've used for longer than FB), and spend about 10% of the time on those combined than I used to spend on Facebook.
It is interesting to note that this has also been a humbling experience. After not posting to my wall for 2 weeks, only one of my hundreds of FB friends has apparently noticed my absence...at least enough to contact me and ask about it! WOW, and here I thought that there was this terrific mutually important party line going on with my "friends" - but learned that it is so UNimportant, absence isn't even noticed! It is definitely humbling to get evidence of one's insignificance in the lives of others.
Another side note: when I post to twitter or pinterest, or my blogs, these are fed onto FB. I don't have to actually go there and post, so maybe people see these and ignore the source, so don't now I'm not there, it's just an automatic feed? Who knows? All I know is that this experience has been enlightening and freeing...and that I'm once again talking to my Lord, my precious Master and Savior, continually as I go through my days. So whatever is - or isn't - happening on Facebook, and whoever does - or doesn't - know that I'm not really there, really doesn't matter as much as I always thought it did!
Whether or not I start using Facebook as a social outlet and communication tool again remains to be seen. I have no desire to do so at the moment, although I have started skimming my wall to make sure all is well with my friends once a day or so, and have even clicked a couple of Like buttons. At the moment I don't really think about it too much, and when I do I'm ambivalent about it all, and I certainly don't feel it drawing me back. So, who knows?
Meanwhile I relax happily with Pinterest, and communicate via my blogs and twitter and occasionally email, and enjoy so much more time with God. Life is back in balance.
Posts
I didn't notice you were gone because I still saw posts from you :shrug But I wondered when I didn't get a Like today on my status that we were at the bird fair ;)
ReplyDeleteYeah, I didn't see it, but hope you had a good time! (I haven't been to a bird fair in years - not since my stroke nearly 4 years ago! And they used to be such a big part of my life...) Did you find any goodies and/or bargains?
ReplyDeleteYes, we had fun :) Lots of neat stuff, tons of birds! But no money ;) There was a free raffle for the kids though - a cute little play area for smaller birds - so the boys each put in a ticket :)
ReplyDeleteY'all should time a visit around a bird fair and come with us!
Yeah, that would be great! :) (What do you use for your RSS feeds? I mean app...assuming you use your phone?)
ReplyDeleteI'm using the News app that was preloaded. Jesse set it up for me. And then I have a blogs bookmark folder in my browser. The blogs I've found more recently are just in there. Yours I usually access from the link when it posts on FB ;)
ReplyDeleteI'd love to blog more but it's so tedious to type on my phone! And unless I'm posting a recipe or a short update, it just takes longer than I have time for...
I know, I rarely have updated a blog on my cell phone! But you were replying so quickly I didn't know how you were getting notifications that fast :).
DeleteI don't keep up with blogs like I should, but I need to really pare down how many I follow.
I missed you Sherry, but saw some things coming thru from you, so didn't track you down! : )
ReplyDeleteAlso, I sent you an email unrelated to Facebook and you answered, so that let me know that you hadn't just unfriended me! Ha! Seriously, my 'friend count' on FB went down one and after I didn't see you posting there as you usually did, I checked to see if you were still my 'friend' and was relieved to see that you were. God bless you!
I'm glad we're still friends too! I'd hate to lose you :). I never even look at my friend counts, and couldn't tell you right now if I have 200 friends or 500 friends or more or less or in-between!
ReplyDeleteMy point was never "woe is me, nobody misses me" but rather that we probably put a lot more importance on FB than it deserves :).
That is also one of the reasons that I went through and took out my games and game friends. I was spending way too much time obsessing about the games and getting really too angry when they didn't work. When I saw that only 23 of my friends were really my friends I wondered what on earth I had been involved in for the past year! And, how much of my real friends' lives had I missed because of game posts over running personal posts.
ReplyDeleteYes, when anything gets in the way of what is really important, it's gotta go doesn't it :).
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