Jessica Buchanan is taking a break from Facebook.
Jessica Buchanan is headed to Orlando with Mercy, Merri and Casey.
Jessica Buchanan just made a fool of herself.
Jessica Buchanan is having a REALLY hard time NOT being on Facebook.
A few weeks ago I decided that for the first 21 days of October I would take a fast and stay off of Facebook. I thought...I've done it before...I can do it again! I can't remember it ever being THIS hard to stay away from something. I guess I really needed to let it go for a while. It's been three days and I feel like I'm counting down the hours until I can get back on. It's been good for me though. I've been able to really allow this to impact me the way a fast is supposed to.
But it's made me wonder, are we able to actually have REAL connections with people even when we don't have social networking sites to keep us together. Don't get me wrong, I will be the first to tell you how amazing I think sites like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter are, but forcing myself away from it has made me realize how dependent I am on it to keep me connected. Instead of having actual conversations, I now resort to referring to people's status updates.
"Hey, Merri, I see that you moved out of buttercup."
"Casey, how was the ghost tour?"
"Amanda, did you guys get the tattoos this weekend?"
I know when couples get together, when they break up. I know who's been hanging out with each other, and what they've been talking about recently. I can tell you which people are bored on a constant basis due to the amount of quizzes they've taken (I'm one of those people). I can tell you all about who's playing Mafia Wars and what's been going on in most of my friend's lives. Yet...besides a small percentage of people and my immediate family, I don't really hang out with a lot of my "friends" and I rarely ever talk to them. I "like" their status updates, but I have no clue how they are REALLY doing.
On the other hand it gives me an amazing opportunity to pray for people and situations I wouldn't know about otherwise. I can tell people Happy Birthday because I want them to know they are loved. I can say hi to a friend from college just because they were on my mind. It opens a lot of doors. I just can't help but feeling that it has become a crutch for social interaction. It's easier to get on facebook than it is to pick up the phone. I don't want to be that disconnected from the people I love. I want to be able to have actual conversations, to be able to go out and have dinner, or play Apples to Apples and interact with actual humans, instead of a computer screen that happens to have their newest profile picture attached to it.
I hope that this fast allows me to let God be God in my life and to help me reconnect to the humans in my life. Until then...
Jessica Buchanan is done with this blog.
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