Hello friends! Have you missed me? I have not missed you. Because if we are truly friends, we have communicated this week- either by snail mail (it was mother's day, after all), email, text, phone, blogging, g-chat, or (gasp!) face to face. How we did not communicate was over facebook.
Loyal readers may know that I have a love-hate relationship with facebook. Recently it's been all love. What a great medium- sharing everything with everyone (all levels of closeness) from photos of new babies and wedding announcements to new haircuts and beach vacations. From shared links and posts I learn more about sports and politics and what shows I wish i had caught on NPR instead of doing whatever task I was doing which then I stop doing to follow the link to NPR to listen to said missed story.
And aye, there's the rub! I wonder how much time all of that takes out of my otherwise relatively productive life? Worse (or better?) still, I notice that my ever shrinking attention span is being pushed further closer to zero due to facebook. I use it as a way to take a mental break from the world. I finish one task and before starting the other, log on to the ol' FB. Usually not for long. a few minutes...er....I wish. I knew I was in trouble when the statuses and links and shares werent being updated fast enough for me. The pace of facebook was too slow for my rapidly switching attention span. Oh, product of the MTV generation, I guess!
So, last Friday, May 7, I decided to just take a little break. On Monday it was tough, I REALLY wanted to log on after completing a mindless recruitment task for a study we are doing. But I held out! And suddenly, it was Wednesday! No facebook and I hadn't noticed!
What did I do this week, you ask? WELL! I read an entire novel (Anna Quindlen, "every last one" read it- so good!), refinished a dining room table with Reg, started and finished an IRB application for the prospective arm of my pre-dissertation research project (complete with consent form!), called 50 subject to recruit for my advisor's research study, did laundry, baked, cooked, cooked extra and froze it, gardened, did yardwork at my house and my mom's house, went to the theater, watched Jepisodes (jeopardy episodes- get it?) alongside Reg instead of holing away in the office, went to the dentist, went to a dinner party, had drinks with the boss, went to work and saw patients, read a handful of articles that had been piling up, went to the mall, and finally planted our garden! That's not even all! Perhaps I would have been as productive even with facebook. But probably not. My deskwork is so easily pushed aside with that slutty distraction! So cheap and so easy and so enjoyable- but you know it comes back to bite you in the end!
I'm not swearing off the stuff for good, a girl needs her fix now and then. But I think the habit has been significantly decreased! Now that the week is up, I dont even feel the urge to log on. Oh, but who am I kidding- I will!
TALK soon!
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