Those of you who read my blog may note that I have written a few posts about technology–it’s pros and cons and such. Well, here goes another one.
During a conversation with a close friend of mine last week she said:
“I posted my Facebook resignation effective January 1.”
Huh?? I was stupefied. What did she mean by that? During the course of our conversation I determined that she is “resigning Facebook” because she realized her life was consumed with Facebook and technology as a whole. As she was talking (we spent about 2 hours together) I noticed she couldn’t stop checking her cell phone. At one point I counted that in the time it took me to drink my grande latte she had checked her phone over 30 times (I stopped counting after 30). I estimate that this was over a 20 minute period.
She was one of those Facebook people that “checked in” wherever she went and had all her Facebook notifications sent directly to her cell phone. She said that being on Facebook caused drama because she was obsessed with knowing what was going on, when and with who. My thought: why deactivate your Facebook account all together? Why not just get rid of the notifications on your cell and JUST check Facebook once a week like I do (well, maybe once every couple weeks–what can I say, I am not dependent on Facebook!)
When you become consumed with a single product (not just technology but even caffeine, lip balm or chewing gum) it causes dependency. That’s a scary thing, in my opinion. I always need to be able to say I can walk away from WordPress, LinkedIn, Facebook and even Face Time and not have the need to be on it every second of everyday.
It just makes me wonder, if my friend (or anyone for that matter) spent half the amount of time and energy on applying for jobs, reading books or communicating verbally as she did on playing Words with Friends on Facebook how much better off would she be?
Just a thought =)
