My Month Without Facebook: Part I

"Are you kidding me? What on Earth for??"

Believe me, at first, I was a skeptic. Before committing to my decision, I began to ask the same questions that I ended up hearing from others over and over during my monthlong quest for Facebook freedom.

Questions like, "How am I ever going to live my life without this classically conditioned, seemingly essential form of communication?" "What will I do without being part of the collective 500 billion minutes spent on Facebook each month?" And of course, the question everyone should be ashamed of asking, but seems to do so quite openly and without much thought, "How will I talk to people?"

I decided the only way to find out the truth behind how life was lived without our beloved Facebook and to answer any and every question associated with life before the social media monster was to quit cold turkey.

In this and my next several columns, I'm going to share my journey spent kicking the Facebook habit.

The final farewell

As I sat at my desk over-thinking how to appropriately and tactfully postpone my relationship with my four-year-long companion, I thought about the relationship-enders we have all come to know and love - such delicately poetic lines as "It's not you, it's me," and "I love you, but I'm not in love with you." But these trite expressions simply were dishonest and disheartening for everyone involved and I wasn't about to go there. I then decided a simple send off using a feathered iconic creature named Twitter would be my weapon of choice.

So there I was. Staring at the question Facebook's arch nemesis, Twitter, is consistently wondering: What's Happening? Such a simple question. Such a life-changing answer. I supplied Twitter with my three words of valediction - Bye, Bye Facebook - and the one-question minded social fowl flew the message to my Facebook profile and informed my digital friends about my declaration of independence. Little did I know what was really about to happen and how much this uncomplicated farewell would complicate my life.

Scary revelation

There comes a time in every addict's life when he or she becomes separated from the continuous consumption of their self-destructive pleasure and fully realizes the nature of the addiction.

For me, the path to addict self-discovery arrived mere moments after leaving Facebook. I found myself habitually opening a new browser window every few minutes and typing in Facebook.com as though Pavlov himself had trained me to fill up every empty URL bar by literally typing the letter "F." I quickly realized I had become inherently conditioned to check Facebook and noted to myself, "not being able to access Facebook is like losing touch with everyone you know at the same time - unsettling isolation."

Day two only confirmed my feelings of confinement. My morning routine of lying in bed 15 minutes longer, skimming through fellow friends' 8 a.m. moans and groans as if discovering a similar thought would become the validation I needed to jolt me into the shower, had quickly vanished.

The social connection I craved upon waking up, which had become a staple in my "moment of morning justification," was no longer there. I only had myself.