Unfriend Yourself.

I was in Colorado the past few days because my grandmother passed away early Saturday morning. She was 89 years old and was pretty active right up until about a year ago. A couple of weeks ago, she fell in her bathroom and was on the floor for three days before someone figured out something was wrong. They got her to the hospital in time to save her which was great but then through tests found out she had the worst stage of stomach cancer. I tried to get out in time to see her before she died, but to no avail.

On the flight out to Colorado, I started reading a short little e-book called Unfriend Yourself. Basically it talked about the perils and dangers of social network sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Google+ and how although they are great tools for relationships, they are sadly becoming the end-all for a lot of people are are replacing face-to-face relationships and such. Here are a few quotes I found were really interesting:

"It seems that, while I truly believed I was becoming a part of these people's lives on Facebook, I wasn't. Many of the people 'I got to know' on Facebook are little more than acquaintances now and weren't much more during our first semester. Today, all of those with whom I'd shared my life via social media are not my friends. They were never the people intimately involved in my life, despite the things I told them online."

"In essence, Facebook's agenda is for us to broadcast ourselves (notably the YouTube tagline), to talk about what we're doing and what we like...Facebook is a digital opportunity for us to self-present through status updates, photos, and "likes."

"We present-or promote-ourselves in such a way to cause people to think of us in a certain way. When I log on to Facebook, I find that I want to put my best foot forward; as a result I find myself bending the truth and skirting circumstance, ever so slightly, to offer to my 'friends' the best part of myself, the part of me that is the coolest, the funniest."

"Facebook has a tendency to inflame a condition we already have: thinking of ourselves more highly than we ought to think."

"I am not the center of the universe, and the funny thing my friend's cat just did is not all that important. Sure, there is a laugh to be had, but ever so subtly we have come to believe that everything about me matters, when it truly doesn't. Boasting, self-promotion, and self-construction are dangerous habits of the mind and heart."

"Quality time with friends used to be spent over coffee or dinner. Now more and more of our community life is managed digitally. Some studies show that most people communicate more online than they do offline."

"Unlike a network, which is built on communication, community is built on communion. 'Too often we applaud technologies that enable us to exchange information (communication) without attending to those means of sharing that build intimacy and deepen our communion with God and with each other.' Communication is easy. A simple text is communication, but it is not communion. A wall post is communication, but it is not communion."

"Facebook activism succeeds not by motivating people to make a real sacrifice but by motivating them to do the things that people do when they are not motivated enough to make a real sacrifice." (WOW - read that again)

"Technologies, and the ideas and media they produce, have a curious power over us. Did you know that 'Facebook addiction' is searched online 350 times more than 'cigarette addiction'? Many people who are regular social media users have a difficult time being away from their profiles for too long."

"Facebook is a great tool for supplementing and augmenting relationships, much in the same way fish oil is a great tool for supplementing our diets. However, many of us are replacing the main courses of our lives - in-the-flesh, face-to-face time with friends and family - with supplemental wall posts and tweets."

The author of the book says that one of the ways we can stay grounded and to not let social media be our only social activity is tough: to unplug from all social media for three days. In fact, this book has three chapters and his advice is to do one chapter each day that you are away from Facebook, Twitter and the like. And I am taking him up on the challenge. Why?

Because like many, I have let Facebook and other social media sites take over my life. When I was reading Unfriend Yourself, there were so many times when I felt he was talking directly to me. It's amazing how my mood can go up and down based on how many people like a comment I make or a link that I share. I think for me the pinnacle of silliness on my part came when I posted about my grandmother passing and then proceeding to notice which of my friends said something and which didn't and honestly debating whether I would just delete all the friends who didn't say something or at least post something passive-aggressive on there about those who didn't say anything.

OK - I may have been a little hurt. But let's have some perspective here. A lot of people don't check their Facebook news feed incessantly. I do. And now that I have the Facebook app for my iPhone and for my iPad, it is so much easier to do so. Perhaps some people decided to say something in person. It doesn't matter. The point is - I am letting social media become (and this is tough to even write the word) an idol. Social Media like Facebook make us feel more important than we probably should think we are. When we reach 200 friends...300 friends...1000 friends - we feel like superstars. When someone retweets one of our tweets (or in my case, when one of my tweet news stories is featured in someone's abolitionist daily news feed), we feel like someone thinks we are important.

I am not saying that Facebook is inherently bad for everyone. It just is for me. So...I'm taking some steps to try and get rid of this idol. I'm not going to delete my Facebook account or anything that drastic. I am going to give up Facebook for Lent, which starts really soon (Wednesday, February 22 to be exact). Now, I still have to post some things for my task force, and I still need to post some things for my church - but for the most part I am going to stay off Facebook, as in check it every five minutes, until Easter. If you happen to have a birthday between February 22 and April 8, my birthday wishes for you will be on Tuesday, February 21 and I am sorry for not wishing you a wonderful birthday on the actual date of your birth.

We'll see how this goes. I'm a little nervous. What am I going to do with all this free time? :D