Finishing hanging the dirty laundry - Facebook part 3

Thirdly, and my last realization that pushed me to make the decision to get rid of facebook, was I began to feel overly important. Facebook has a way of making you feel like EVERYONE cares that you: forgot your book for class, are bored, are hungry, are sleeping, are eating..whatever it is I began to constantly update my status in order to make sure that if someone by chance wanted to get a hold of me they could check Facebook and know what was going on in my life. Facebook statuses became an "art" for me... either funny, contemplative, super serious, and I realized that I was feeling exploited. Why should life changing decisions, events, and feelings be broadcasted via my Facebook status!? I have no idea! but I am so thankful that I have realized how ridiculous I was being.

Thank you Seth Thomas, Grant Fishbook, Doug Bunnell, and many others who have heard me rant and go through this phase of life. And thanks Facebook, for helping me realize the crap I was letting myself believe when ultimately my life means SO much more than a few pictures, a list of interests, and creeping around on people I haven't heard from in years.

Facebook Part 2

Unfortunatley, I left the INN and thought "well pfft... I can rise above that. I am NOT that bad about facebook. Some of that stuff applies to me, but geez. I know what is real life and what is facebook life." Then, on Sunday morning a week later I was at a church that I had never attended. The sermon was on confronting sin and acknowledging it as a filthy pig that is preventing us from getting the wonderful things that God has for us. Immediately for some reason I felt conviction about Facebook. Constantly comparing myself to see if I measure up is no way to live my life...and instead of boosting my own self confidence when I saw others struggling with something I should be trying to be a better friend to them and support them through their struggles. (Which was what the sermon this last Sunday was on...how the paralyzed man was healed when his closest friends CARRIED him to Jesus. Powerful stuff) Anyways back to the pig...the pastor challenged us before we left by saying, "Now, when you leave here, the sun is going to hit your face and you are going to smile. You have a decision to make. You can either get rid of the pig or continue to make excuses." which presented the challenge once again...

soapbox moment - Why I Left Facebook (part 1)

so I deleted my Facebook account on February 1. A little over a week has passed, and I feel so liberated. Please do NOT interpret this as me bashing Facebook, or saying that it is an awful thing, but my moment on a soapbox is due. This is MY experience with it, and may not be where everyone is so don't be outraged, ok? Alright.

At the INN we are talking about letting God be the Lord of every aspect of our lives. Seth spoke on how our generation is impatient and tech-savvy. During his talk, I agreed with him on several points. First, we have our communication through our "iLives" to be substituted for real conversation. Instead of calling someone when I'm thinking about them, I creep around on their facebook profiles. After wasting about an hour reading wall-to-wall posts of people, coming across people who I maybe don't even remember meeting and probably looking at over 200 photos on facebook, I would feel like I wasted an hour but-- I could justify it by writing a wall post to someone along the lines of "Hey! I miss you! Hope you're doing well!" Now hear me out - these posts are NOT a bad thing. That is not the point. My point is: I would find myself either feeling like I wasn't pretty enough, didn't have funny enough jokes to write to people, wasn't going on enough adventures, and on the other side of things, I was rushing to false judgements about people I hardly knew based on thier pictures and even sometimes feel inferior to others after seeing pictures of what they are doing. THAT my friends, is NOT the intended use of Facebook, but that is what I was getting out of it. So thanks Seth Thomas, for reminding me that not only was I allowing myself to be emotionally unstable, either under or over confident depending on who I had just compared myself to, and allowing me to confront the issue.

Now... I don't have time to continue but there is sooo much more I have learned. And unfortunately, the INN talk was only the first straw. So check back soon for part 2.