A couple of weeks ago I was shamed into cutting my Facebook time down to 10 minutes a day. I experienced mixed success with that, which bothered me a little. So last week I decided on a whim to stop checking Facebook at all for a while–maybe a week. No announcement to my Facebook friends or anything. I looked at the clock and noted that I was quitting at 8:32 a.m. last Tuesday.

I swear, for the first day it was like laying off the hooch or something. Every time I checked my email I felt a visceral pull towards the Facebook icon. When I finished a task, my entire being wanted to check Facebook before I started the next task, like I needed a smoke break. It was that bad.

The next day I only had to fight off the Facebook compulsion a couple of times.

For the remaining five days my mouse/finger drifted towards the Facebook icon unbidden a couple of times, out of residual reflex, but I didn’t really care about it when I caught myself and did something else.

Across the whole week I guess I reclaimed at least four or five hours from my former Facebook habit. I devoted this time to other things like studying, looking for a job, writing, cleaning out my inbox, washing dishes, and reorganizing my wallet. I kept a log.

So, after the first couple of days, I didn’t miss Facebook at all. I quit Facebook and lived.

I’m going to cross-post this to Facebook. I know that sounds stupid, but the only people I know who can appreciate it are my friends still riding the Facebook merry-go-round of death. Or of wasted time, anyway.

I don’t plan to continue my 100% Facebook-free lifestyle choice, but do I think this experiment will go a long way towards helping me keep my Facebook time down to 10 minutes a day. I’m still looking for a job, and my glove compartment needs to be cleaned out in the worst way.

Artist's conception of me after 1 hour of Facebook deprivation.
Artist’s conception of me after 1 hour of Facebook deprivation.

Image: “Despair” by Cyn McCurry

3 thoughts on “Murdering the Facebook Monkey

  1. Shannon Hopps says:

    Totally intrigued. I did this, too. I’ve done it a couple of times actually and it is a good thing. But I haven’t done it recently… hmmm.. .maybe it’s time for a reset.

  2. Interesting. I live on FB, but I am sure I miss a lot. Mainly because I use lists and filters through Social Filter. So, I pretty much get a status update of those closest to me unless I am really bored and decide to click on the “home” button and see what FB thinks I am interested in. Still a lot of political stuff, liked pages, new friends, games, etc I never see. Still, I probably spend way to much time on there, and could stand to cut back. For me though, it is mostly a boredom thing. When I’m working on a project, I don’t even think about it.

  3. I quit Face Book once long enough to learn Jazz. I have been back long enough to forget it all. It might be time again for me to quit for a while.

    …but then I won’t be able to tell people where I’m playing, or to post pictures of my vacations, or of my pets, or my instruments, or my kids’ stuff…

    Dammitall…

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