facebook-less .

Social media. It's addicting, no lie. It lets you keep in touch, but there are also games, pictures, videos, "likes," fan pages, and all that other jazz. It's almost as if you can get to know someone simply because you've added them on facebook. It gives you reason to talk to them in person and become their actual friend. I remember back when I had a facebook and it was always, meet someone, go home and add them on facebook.


I was also one of those people who always had facebook up in my browser, would check it every two seconds, whether I had gotten a notification or just to see the new things that were popping up on the news feed. And the great thing is, the more friends you had, the more things would be constantly updating on your news feed! I remember hearing that a friend of mine was going to give up Facebook for Lent. I couldn't imagine how that would even be possible. I played Jetman, Farmville, etc. etc.

I would just blow so much time on there, and it was something I was constantly doing. Architecture is hard enough without all of that extra time wasted. I decided at one point that simply trying to not look at it wasn't going to work, and that I was just going to straight up get rid of it. At the end of this academic year, it will be one year since I got rid of my facebook and I can't imagine that it's already been that long. A lot of people questioned why I initially did it at the end of the school year -- because that wouldn't really make sense, given that summer is when I would have more free time to mess around on the internet... but I guess my reasoning was sort of that I would be able to get used to not having it over the summer.

The hardest part is that when you delete your account (and I mean delete, not deactivate) they still give you 2 solid weeks to still reactivate your entire account, just by signing in. It will automatically do it if you slip up and sign in by accident. For some people, it works for them just to deactivate it for awhile. Not for me, completely getting rid of it was the only way I could get that time back and be able to (sort of) focus on my work.

Do I miss it? Of course. To some extent, I feel very out of the loop. I'm always amazed by the people who have it but are not compelled to check it but once a week or even on rarer occasions. Facebook is an awesome idea, no doubt, and Lord knows it is way better than Myspace and has certainly taken off much more than Myspace.

When I got rid of my Facebook, I certainly found other ways to blow time on the internet. Sometimes I wonder if I actually am saving myself time by not having one. I'd like to think most definitely yes, but there's no way to be positive about it. There's addictinggames, stumbleupon, todaysbigthing, twitter, and youtube. Will I ever give that stuff up? Maybe. Probably not, but you never know. With only 2 all nighters pulled this year, maybe I'm doing something right, time management-wise.

Lyric of the day:
"God only, God knows I'm trying my best, but I'm just so tired of this lonely mess"