Facebook Fast

Fourty days Facebook free.  What’s that all about?

I recently made the decision to give up Facebook for Lent. So very shortly I will wave it goodbye for 40 whole days. During that time I won’t be posting or checking in. I won’t be responding to game requests, sharing links or taking a quick peek to see what everyone else is up to. It is my plan to undergo a total Facebook fast.

Reactions to this have been mixed, so I’ve decided to respond here to three of the questions folks might have.

Why Lent?
Well, first off, what is lent? Lent is the 40 days between Ash Wednesday and Easter.  Traditionally the church marked this period with a time of fasting. This practice is preserved in many Christian traditions by ‘giving up’ something during lent. I was brought up attending a church which followed this practice, which for me mostly meant annual half-hearted attempts to give up smarties, or some other treat. Whilst the church I now belong to doesn’t particularly follow the liturgical calendar, this has been on my mind recently and I thought lent was as good a time as any.

Why Fast?
Fasting is the voluntary giving up of some thing – most obviously food.  The purpose is to practice self denial in order to allow oneself to focus on something ‘other’, often in tandem with prayer and contemplation. In Christian tradition it is intended to allow one to develop self discipline and focus more closely on God. We live in a very fast paced world full of distraction where self denial is not something we are good at. I wanted to reverse this trend in my own life and to see if by putting aside one of my self indulgences I could improve both the quality of my life and the depth of my relationship with God.

Why Facebook?
Strangely, I doubt I’m going to have to explain to any of my readers what Facebook is! And therein lies part of the answer. Facebook is very good at becoming a big part of your life.  It certainly has for me.  Even when I’m going through a phase when I don’t post much, I still check it regularly, just in case I miss something.  Some people were surprised that I’ve chosen to give up something which has become so integrated in to modern life, but that is kind of the point.  It’s not sacrifice to give up something you’re not going to miss.  There are other reasons I think my life might be enhanced by spending some time away from the Big F.  Facebook is very good at keeping you in touch with lots of people, but what it isn’t good at is depth.  Interactions through FB (and Twitter and all the others) tend towards the shallow and trivial.  As we get more used to that there is a risk that we let that slip into our interactions outside Facebook.  We learn to broadcast everything on a wide scatter but our relationships start to lose depth.  Now for me relationships are a large part of what being human is all about.  Relationships with others, with our environment and with God.  I’m hoping that some time without FB will help me to regain some of that relational depth. 

Facebook feeds you news, but for a little while at least I’m going to have to learn to feed myself.  Rather than subsist on the increasingly bland diet FB chooses to spoonfeed me I’m going to have to cast my net wider and seek out my own news (amusing pictures of cats, horsemeat puns etc).  But as well as feeding you, Facebook feeds on you.  It eats your time, your energy and your resources.  I’m looking forward to getting some of that back.  I plan to try and use the time well.  More time spent with friends and family, more time reading and studying. Maybe even some writing. I’ve finally started work on the blog I’ve been thinking about for so long! We’ll see how that all works out.

So there it is. My challenge for the next 40 days.  I’m going to be living in a shadowy incommunicado state where the only way to reach me will be in person.  Or on the landline. Or mobile.  By text, e-mail or letter.  Google talk is also an option. Semaphore or heliograph probably won’t be required.