Save Sanity: Facebook Friday

Feb 12, 2013 by saverchic

I’ve got a confession to make.  I do a terrible job of keeping in contact with people.  Terrible.  And, it makes me very sad.  I’ve been lucky to be friends with so many wonderful people, but most of those friendships have faded away over time.  Some even ended in an argument or the realization that they were never great friends in the first place.  

When I joined Facebook in 2008, I was thrilled at the prospect of being able to keep in contact with my entire high school class, everyone I knew in college, and pretty much anyone I’d ever said hi to.  This seemed to be the cure for all of the friendship fade-aways that had happened in the last fifteen years.

At first, Facebook was great.  Then, it became something I needed to do each day.  Then, it became a tremendous responsibility.  When my children were born, I used Facebook as a way to stay in touch with family and show them pictures of the babies.

My parents joined Facebook.  I became friends with people I worked with, and they expected me to know what was going on their lives because of what they had written on Facebook.  Plus, I still looked at the posts of my old friends, and it made me sad that we weren’t close any more.  It especially hurt when I saw posts about old friends getting together to do fun things, knowing that I wasn’t invited.  I was so busy with my babies, that I couldn’t complain – there’s no way I could have joined them anyway.  But still, it hurt to see what I was missing out on.

Finally, I was done.  I needed to cut the cord with Facebook, but I didn’t want to close my account.

So, I instituted Facebook Friday.  Now, the only day I allow myself to check Facebook is on Friday.  If I happen to get a private message or a post, I’ll respond (usually via email if I can), but other than that, I avoid the site like the plague.  The results have been amazing:

{1}  I have a little more time each day to do things like create a blog.  Or do laundry.  Or pick up the phone and actually call one of those friends I’ve been missing.

{2}  I feel more satisfied.  I’m not constantly comparing myself to some chic from high school who would never talk to me, and is now making homemade decoupaged Valentine vases out of repurposed wood.  I don’t see the stuff I am “missing out on,” which probably wasn’t that great to begin with.

{3} I’m not “on alert.”  I don’t constantly check my phone for status updates and returned messages.  It’s peaceful.

I’ve done Facebook Friday for about a year now, and it’s gotten to the point that I sometimes forget about it.  I can go weeks without checking it.  Two years ago, this would have been impossible.

If Facebook is driving you crazy, I’d encourage you to try Facebook Friday (or Tuesday, Wednesday, whatever).  It has helped me to slow down, and saved me a lot of time.