Its been six months since starting this blog. Six months since culling my Facebook usage. Have I missed it? No. Do I feel out of the Facebook loop? I did at first, but not now.
I think I have three friends left and ‘like’ only a handful of pages. The pages I ‘like’ contain up to date information that I know I can’t get anywhere else. The friends I have are those that I have no other way of keeping up with!
If you are a Facebook user, it is easy to underestimate how much information we internalise every single day. Most of that is information that we don’t really need in our lives. Supposing that every one of your friends reads your status updates on a daily basis, means that with each one of those updates, is one less reason to talk to them in person.
This goes especially for people you see regularly. I urge you to take a look at your friends list. Ask the following questions: “If I see them tomorrow, will they stop and talk to me?” “Do I want this person to be included in the (sometimes) personal things I post on my wall?” “Does this person EVER interact with me on Facebook?”
There are a lot of stalkers out there in Facebook land. (A lot like blog land… those people who you KNOW read your blog, but don’t ever comment…..must be that contagious blogging disease I have..) Why are they your friends?
Cull, Cull people! Free up your mind for the important things in life. Free up your time and fill it with the things that matter the most. For me it has been more daily devotion time and more time spent with my family. I feel stronger. I don’t feel so judged. It was all so self-inflicted.
I am not aware of what people are doing on a day-to-day basis, so it gives me more reason to talk. Something we don’t do well today.
As for blogging, I love it. Once a day I sit down with a cuppa and write something, read some blogs, comment on some. Most of my posts are scheduled, so they will appear at six in the morning, that’s not when I write them – it’s just a saved time I have on my scheduler.
I have enjoyed the interaction with fellow bloggers. The blog has encouraged me to finish projects and allows my creative illiterate self to be more creative. It has allowed me to photograph with a purpose.
Ever thought of starting a blog? Do it. (Use WordPress it’s so easy to use..) Keep it a private blog, just for your family.. or if you have something to give to the blogging community, let it rip on the world-wide web.
Take a look at Bron’s post about blogging… here
or Pip’s Blogging school lessons here.
April at Flourishing Abode has some great tutorials about blogging here as well.
little bit of thyme 
I so need to read this. And then again tomorrow, and prob the day after that too! I’m so aware of the risk of being so ingrained in the FB culture that it starts to rule your everyday life and interfere with real life interaction with friends and family. Ever since making the conscious effort to write more and grow and improve my blog, I’ve been sooo wary of allowing social media avenues (which do help me interact and engage with my readers in a positive way) to take over and suck up all my time. It’s a fine line and something that I have to work on. Thank you for this reminder! You, Tash, are an inspiration :) xo
Oh thank you Amanda! (btw, I did unlike your page on fb… just coming clean… as I prefer to see it in “real life” on your blog.) It’s just such a time waster. I wasted so much time on it in the past. I feel that it’s almost a social “no no” to NOT be on FB. But hey, I like to stand out from the crowd. All the best with cutting down.. btw… did you buy a labeller? woah, too many dot dot dots in this reply! Hope the baby growing is going well. xx
We’ve never bothered with FB. Do I think we’re missing out on something really valuable? NOOOO! Do I think I’d be wasting heaps of time on FB if I did join? YEEESSSS!
Now I just need to monitor the blog reading time!!! … but I DO enjoy your bog!
I’m a hopeless Facebooker. I have never quite got the point of all that… small talk! It just gets stuck in your head like a bad tune.
But blogging on the other hand… now there’s a conversation I like! x