Facebook Hiatus

So at about the same time I started my real vacation I also decided to take a similar vacation from Facebook.  Now I'm not 'anti-facebook' but honestly not being connected to ever schmuck I went to high-school with or every friend of my mother's was really very pleasant.  It wasn't meant as a forever thing but I have gone 2 1/2 weeks without logging in once and it's been great and I can't see myself back on there on a daily basis..  

 

I have probably missed a couple of Farmville updates, a few lame links and a bunch of idiots wishing their Facebook friends Happy Birthday but I'm no lesser a man for it.   

An article in yesterday's Times about the physical effects of always being connected showed that having no-downtime leads to many physical ailments as the brain needs time to unwind also.  I'm not about to give up my Blackberry but I'm thrilled to have one less thing to use it for.

It's not that Facebook sucks (well it kind of does) but more that there is just too much information.  I am happy to hear that some dude who lived on my floor during my freshman year is doing well but I don't need to hear his take on life 5 times per day.   Out of 200 FB friends, my newsfeed is filled up by the mundane musings of about 20 of them.

I've also realized that the people who post the most often believe that people genuinely care when they wish their Facebook friends a 'good morning' and often seem to post so often only to never fall off anybody's scroll.  It's self-serving and pathetic but mostly I notice that the most frequent updaters aren't my friends in real-life, they are all peripheral acquaintances or people I knew in High School but haven't spoken with in a decade.

In the meatnime I've asked my friends to email me pictures of their vacations and kids and to text me their funny comments and I'm more than happy to not get bombarded with it all at once.

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry