Quitting Facebook.

I woke up yesterday morning with the sudden urge to get rid of my facebook page. That’s right, give up my cyberspace identity as Cherry Jones Cook and free myself of constant page checking. Facebook as a homepage was so programmed into my mind that while trying to google dream meanings on the web, I automatically found myself at the facebook homepage where, I could either reactivate or continue on with my freedom. The funny thing about it was that rather than see the good in what I had done, my floor-mates instead mocked the very idea that I could go even more than six hours without my facebook. I am not a promoter of the latest technologies (cellphones,social networking, twitter). To me, all these impersonal activities take away from the beauty of nature, the simple things like sunlight, reading a book, talking face-to-face. When did the simple things become unimportant and the internet almighty? But more importantly, why were my friends so appalled and angry at the idea that I could step away from facebook? Was it because they spend hour upon hour on facebook looking at pictures of people they don’t and never will care about? That whatever-her-name-is wore a ugly purple headband with a floral dress and they need to know about it or simply that they are so programmed that the thought of breaking the pattern seemed irrational and deviant to them? I have no idea which it is but despite the attitudes and interrogations I held out strong for many hours. I felt no cravings, no need at all to check my facebook. The important people in my life could contact me on my cellphone if they needed to, my friends could tweet at me or text me. Life was simpler but I was still attached to technology. There is no easy way to disconnect from technology and in some ways, the world around you. Society won’t allow it. Your friends will not allow it. You will be scared the entire time that someone will think you blocked them, someone has lost their phone and only has your facebook as a means of communication.  Lastly, as I did, you will reactivate not because you want to but because the people around you won’t stop pestering you about that thing they saw. You will be out of the loop which no one wants to be. And then once you reactivate, your friends will write on your wall snarky comments like “what happened to giving up facebook?” just because you took a vacation from something they aren’t strong enough to abandon, even if it is only a few comments and pictures missed.