My life without Facebook

By Julianna Goldring

If I were to sum up not having Facebook for a week in one word, it would be “refreshing.”

For one week, I didn’t get 25 notifications from groups I joined over a year ago, see how much people drank over the weekend or waste half an hour clicking through pictures from an album I don’t care about.

In truth, my time without Facebook didn’t result in any exceptional achievements; however, I did manage to get to sleep an hour earlier, clean my room and take a well-overdue break from it.

When I was in Nicaragua this past summer, I was without all social media, including Facebook, for six weeks. The one time I did have access to the site was disappointing, to say the least. I had expected to feel sadly disconnected without it, but it was surprisingly exhilarating.

I was living in a rural village in the middle of nowhere, and instead of wishing I could go and check my Facebook every day, I was happy to be separated from that chaos. Instead of worrying about how many notifications I had, I got a widened perspective on what was truly important.

Like most people, I frequently use Facebook to keep in touch with people and to see what people are up to.

However, Facebook inflicts a certain level of stress based on how many friends you have and what statuses you’re posting. Isn’t it all a bit ridiculous? Who cares?

If you take a break from Facebook, you might be surprised at what you can accomplish with that extra time, and you might find that perhaps you aren’t missing out on much. (Read about what how counting minutes exposes procrastination on page 2)