Mental Health

Two weeks into my Facebook deletion and non-use of any social media save WordPress blogs and here’s what I’ve discovered.

I have found that I have more time on my hands.  I don’t spend so much time looking at my phone.  I want to interact with people face-to-face or by talking on the phone.  I also find my self annoyed with text messages (this was unexpected).

Of course I also found myself going through a bit of a withdrawal, however, I knew this would happen.  This occurred every time I gave up FB for Lent.  Then again, my brain knew there was an end date to the no FB time and could countdown the days during that two week withdrawal time frame.  This time, I think it’s easier because I know, in my heart, I’m not going back.

Then I found this gem on YouTube.  Watch and learn.

I tried so hard to resist FaceBook when it first came out.  I was not an early adopter, but I did finally check it out about 10 years ago, and I sucked into it’s vortex of nothingness.  Now early on, FaceBook was more about playing silly games.  It was their way of building a user database, making you want to get more friends into the pages, to “help” you with you game progress.  FarmVille was particularly insidious about this.  I cut many “friends” from my listing when I gave up on the stupid games.  By then FB had morphed.

It was now about “social causes” and shutting out the Conservative voice in America.  I nearly dumped it then.  But I was drawn back in by the “let’s post where we are and look at what I’m doing” crap.  So I kept it on my phone.  Mistake.

That lead to me putting it back on all my devices.  Which lead to large chunks of time wasted reading posts on FB.  That’s when I started with the 40 days of Lent.  It felt so good.  Now I can extend that feeling to back before all the instant gratification and self-engrandizment.

And watching more Tedx talks today, I’m learning that this removal of FaceBook (and the other social media – none of which I used) while help my mental health!  Bonus!!