Day 3

I have failed. I logged back on. I ask those who follow me (all two of you) to not be too disappointed. Willpower has never been my strong point. That said, I did learn some important things from my three days away from facebook. (well 2 1/2 days).
1. Facebook does have it's place. It is a great way to stay in touch with the daily life of dear friends who live out of state. I love knowing how my friends are doing, what they are up to, and how life is treating them. I love that they can see pictures of my kids growing up and also know what I am up to.
2. Facebook is not so exciting that I need to check it 12 times daily. OK, so maybe I don't check it a dozen times, but maybe I do? After 2 1/2 days, nothing much had changed on facebook. Few statuses had changed, and life was plodding along as usual. No life changing events had happened since I last logged on. If they had, I am sure I would have gotten a phone call.
3. As a Christian, I think I need to be more acutely aware of what I post and why. Pride is very very deceptive and I am learning that it can sneak into your life without you even realizing it. Am I posting something just to hear my friends praise me? Am I posting something because it makes me look good? Do I look at other people's statues and feel jealous, prideful or annoyed? It is hard to be honest with yourself about this, but you have to be totally honest to see it. Facebook can easily nurture pride, and pride comes in many forms. All I can say is be careful.
4. Facebook is how people communicate these days, like it or not. People actually check and respond to facebook more than they do their e-mail. Facebook offers a way for people to tell multiple people their "news", without sending out a billion individual e-mails. In this fast paced society, I suppose that has it's advantages. But I think we need to be careful that facebook does not allow us to slip into the habit of replacing real relationship with the click of a mouse.

In conclusion, I am still torn about facebook. It is a love hate relationship, and I wish I could just give it up. However, due to the fact that it is an important communication tool with several friends, I can't bring myself to do it. So for now I will stay on. But I have gained a new perspective of how facebook can easily allow negative things to creep up into your life. I am back to facebook, but this time with boundaries.

Day 2

I have a confession. I did log on yesterday. I needed to "facebook" an old high school friend with news about Emma's acceptance into a Kindergarten program. Her own daughter is in the program, and I wanted to let her know that Emma indeed got in. (She played a big part in encouraging me to apply and telling me more about it). The problem being, I had neither her e-mail address or her phone #. Facebook keeps you in touch with those people who you would not otherwise have much contact with. That is the good (or bad) thing about it. In fact, I am struggling with the fact that no longer am able to see the updates in the lives of some dear friends who live out of state. Yes, a phone call would be better. However, I think that with today's busy schedules, it is nice to see how your friend is doing when you would not otherwise have the time to call. My friends work full time, so a good time for me to call, may not be a good time for them.
Since I logged on yesterday, my fourteen days is now extended by a day. I needed to re-cancel my account after logging in to start all over again. So the fortnight is no longer true to it's name. It is a fortnight and a day, if I last that long. We'll see. There are some unexpected positives to being on facebook that I had not realized. I am just not sure that they outweigh the negatives.

Day 1

I have decided to take the plunge, and attempt to delete my Facebook account for good. To figure out how, I had to go into the Help section and search for "permanently delete account". Then it leads you to a link of how to do this. Perhaps there is an easier way, but this is the only way I could find.
I will try to keep my blogging to a minimum since that would defeat one of the reasons for getting off of Facebook, the waste of time it is.
The truth is, every time I log onto facebook, a little thought pops into my head. "Isn't there something more constructive you could be doing with your time?". Yes, I could. There is a multitude of reasons that facebook is really counter-productive for me. I am not that great at explaining these things, but this blog I found did a great job: http://www.ligonier.org/blog/should-christians-be-facebook/
Not all of his reasons apply to me, but many do. I must ask myself whether Facebook is standing in the way of many more important things. If I could keep my Facebook browsing time to the maximum time I set for myself, then perhaps it would be OK. However, I think we all know how five "Facebook minutes" turn into 30 real-time minutes. 30 minutes of precious time lost. God reminds us time and time again how our life here is a mere breath. Do I really want to spend it on facebook?
When I went to Emma's school Monday they had a project the kids had done. They had drawn a picture of their mom, and included details such as things she likes, what she likes to eat, and their favorite thing about their mom. The parents had to guess which drawing and description belonged to which child. Two of the drawings included under favorite things "going on the computer". I feared that one of those was mine! How embarrassing I thought, how telling! To my relief, mine said "Playing games". But the truth is, the computer-loving mom easily could have been me. If I was ashamed about that, then I need to do something about it.