True confessions

First of all, I will tell you that I have an addictive personality.  If I enjoy something, I go overboard.  Add to that the fact that I'm an introvert and socially awkward, so I don't make friends easily in real life.  And when I do, I eventually just put them on the back burner and don't keep in touch.  It isn't deliberate, but when I look back over my life, I see this happening often.

So when I discovered social media, I was suddenly having conversations with people.  I was a social butterfly online!  At least that's how I felt in the beginning:  I shared jokes and stories, and I came across new people I genuinely liked.  I was hooked.  Facebook caters to those who embrace her, don't they?  They give us fun games to play (another gift to addictive people), they tell you jokes, they keep you up on current events.  If you love the Chiefs, there's a group for that.  Tractors?  Oh, there's at least one Facebook group for every make of tractor ever built.  

And they have some useful services.  You always know when a friend is having a birthday, which is especially helpful when the Facebook friend is a close relative.  When Cliff has something to sell, he has much better luck with Facebook Marketplace than he ever did on Craigslist.  Facebook saves all the pictures you share, too; but I have Amazon Prime, and they save every picture on my computer for me.  

I wrote "The Facebook Song", which is almost a celebration of my addiction!  The video shows no picture because I wrote it at 3 AM one morning and didn't want to comb my hair, which reminds me I was so addicted, I even woke up thinking happy thoughts about Facebook.

I have not permenantly gotten rid of the Monster that ate my brain.  It's temporarily deactivated.  But it's still active in my head, and that's why I haven't reactivated it, and perhaps never will.  I did keep Messenger; so if you are a Facebook friend who is reading this, you can contact me if you need to.  If I ever do go back to Facebook, there will be a huge un-friending, and it wouldn't be because I'm angry with anyone (although this election-and-covid19 mess made some people show their true colors until they got on my last nerve).  Nope, I would un-friend everyone except close relatives, plus a few friends who feel like relatives to me.  For once, I'd have less than 100 "friends", but they'd be real-life, genuine people.  Half those "Facebook friends" just follow others so they can gossip and find fault with them.  I, too, am guilty of that.  True confessions!

Don't count on my return, because I won't go back unless I know I'm in control:  I'll know that when I can go an hour without any thought of Facebook.  Even then, I wonder if I'd go right back to my old ways if I return.  Just so you know, I'm still Internet addicted to a certain extent, but I'll keep that fault.  I'm old, I like to learn, I can't do a lot of things any more, and I enjoy reading blogs; watching television all day doesn't work for me.

So, while politics and corona virus "experts" were the straw that broke the camel's back and made me leave, I believe it was a positive thing.  I was wasting my life on Facebook.  This blog is enough social media for me, and if anybody wants to argue politics in the comment section, I won't argue... I'll simply delete their comments, because this is my house on the Internet; they'll need to go get their own house, where they can say what they please.

I've heard it said, "Sin will take you farther than you want to go, keep you longer than you want to stay, and cost you more than you want to pay."  

So will Facebook.

Very sincerely,

Donna