I’ll admit it. When I heard Matthew Warner talk about quitting Facebook on SQPN’s Catholic Weekend, many of the things I haven’t been able to articulate well came to the forefront of my thoughts. And then when he wrote about it at The Radical Life, I found myself thinking about it for real.
And then I had two Facebook Incidents.
“That’s IT,” I thought. I even went so far as to post this on my timeline:
Two hours later, I realized that if I deleted my personal Facebook account, I would lose access to the pages I manage. One of them is my author page, and OK, maybe that could have gone. But the parish page? Nope.
My husband told me, repeatedly and with what I think was increasing annoyance, that it was No Big Deal. What I heard in his voice was some version of “Just drop it, move on, get over it, read a book.” (I actually went and spent three hours in the garden. I got a blister on my hand and calmed down quite a bit.)
Both of those posts garnered a lot of discussion on my timeline. My mom made a personal plea for me to stay. A few friends offered me alternatives (unfriend everyone, gray out my photo, disappear).
Some told me they’d miss me. Others almost argued with me to stay.
The bottom line is that no, I’m not quitting Facebook. At least, not right now.
Right now, I spend between 5-10 minutes a day on Facebook, but it probably looks like more if you follow my timeline. I get on early and begin my day with gratitude. I also end up liking articles and things I read, sharing links (using HootSuite’s “autoschedule” feature), and posting from my phone.
Is that 5-10 minutes I lose forever? Maybe. I’ve long felt that Facebook is a necessary evil in many ways. It’s the bottom of my priority list when it comes to checking in, following, and sinking time. (I prefer reading. Or sleeping.)
All of that said, there can be–and is–good on Facebook, as on any of the other social networks. Though I admittedly prefer Twitter and Google+, right now my life is such that, well, I just don’t get to play anywhere for very long…
So no, I’m not quitting Facebook. How about you?
Copyright © 2013, Sarah Reinhard
Sarah Reinhard
Sarah Reinhard continues to be shocked and delighted that her life as a grown-up involve horses, writing, and sparkly dress shoes. In her work in the New Evangelization as a Catholic wife, mom, writer, parish employee, and catechist, she’s learned a lot of lessons, had a lot of laughs, and consumed mass amounts of coffee. She’s online at SnoringScholar.com and CatholicMom.com, and is the author of a number of books.
2 responses to “No, I’m *not* quitting Facebook.”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
[…] No, I’m *not* quitting Facebook. (newevangelizers.com) […]
[…] like those weighed by writers such as Matthew Warner at The Radical Life or Sarah Reinhard at NewEvangelizers.com. Perhaps I too felt the subtle guilt pangs of spending any spare time in a virtual world when there […]