On 28 August, I deactivated my Facebook account for a semester-long abstinence project as part of my substance abuse counseling class. I noted in my abstinence contract that I would post on my blog more with the extra free time I had.
Well, we can all see how that worked out. Twitter requires far less effort than Blogger, and 140 characters lend themselves best to snark, so my Tweets have channeled my pith for the past two months.
Anyway, for class today (two weeks to go!) we had to write a goodbye letter to our addictions, and I decided to post mine:
Dear Facebook,
Technically this isn’t a goodbye, since I’m not quitting you forever; but this is a reassertion of my control over you. You’ve given me a lot of information, laughs and incredulity over the past six years, whether at purposeful comedy or at the absolute [expletive] people somehow think is acceptable (the word “hubby” comes to mind). But here’s the thing--an acerbic wit and constant vacillation between kindness and misanthropy may be part of my identity, but being mean-spirited is emphatically not. Facebook, your gaze is soulless and I’m glad I blinked first. Chelsea Fagan put it very well when she wrote on Thought Catalog this week that “...participating in the draining culture of online posturing and facetiousness actively erodes our compassion, and our ability to tell what is and isn’t important.”
This letter is my declaration of relegating you again to the proper space you should fill in my life: a small corner on which I will never depend the way I used to.
Carie
