Day 2 and Day 3

As it turns out, I ended up not keeping a journal for everything that happened between yesterday morning and tonight, but suffice to say that I don’t really miss Facebook all that much after 3 days. In fact, I don’t miss it enough to end the fast just yet. I’m going to go another day without it. It might be a little more difficult tomorrow since I’ll be in my office most of the day without a ton of work.

It has been refreshing to pull my head out of the sand that has become Facebook and get a breath of fresh air. I sat at CCs the other day and actually spent time talking to people around me, building relationships with the people who I always see there but never really talk to.

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One of my favorite parts about this whole fast thing is the fact that the only time my phone goes off is for a phone call or a text from an actual person, rather then a tweet or a Facebook notification. I actually get a little excited when I hear the text chime because I know its an actual person trying to communicate with me, not some social application pining for my attention.

Overall, these three days have been an interesting experience. I’ve been able to take a step back and spend more time growing my relationship with God and the people I’m surrounded by everyday.

I would love to do this again, maybe even for a longer period of time, and I would like to get some more people involved. I think it would be really cool if I made it part of a big group effort, for a whole bunch of us to simply take a break from Facebook, and spend more time interacting with God and the physical world around us, rather then the virtual world that we get sucked into when we spend all of our free time on Facebook.

Would love for you to join me.

- Kyle

Facebook Fast: Day 1

Author’s note: Recently I decided that I would try to fast from Facebook and Twitter for a few days. Over the period of these 3 days, I’m going to chronicle my experiences. Because of the nature of this “journal”, my thoughts will be presented here in more of a stream-of-consciousness format. I realize that my best piece of writing will not be contained here. You have been warned

10:30 AM

When you are trying to kick a habit, it is said that the until you get over that hump, the more time goes by, the harder it gets to kick said habit.

If there is any truth to this statement, then it is going to be a long 3/4 days. After only 10.5 hours as of this writing, I find it very difficult to resist the urge to check Facebook and Twitter.

It’s an extremely interesting experience. Talked to some people about it today and many people want me to let them know how it goes. It’s interesting to see how everyone is aware of this problem that our generation has with Facebook.

We’ll see how the rest of the day goes.

1:40 PM:

Just now found myself typing Facebook.com into an address bar. Yikes.

5:42 PM

Work wasn’t so bad. I had a few things to do and the lack of Facebook helped my productivity in that area.

Some of the conversations I’ve had today have been amazing. I’ve gotten a lot of people to think about the amount of time they spend on Facebook/Twitter.

I ended up putting some technical limitations on my computer to stop me from visiting Facebook...it got pretty tempting at some points. Part of me thinks that this is ridiculous. At times I feel like a junkie who needs his next fix. I wonder how many people are obsessed with Facebook like I am? I wonder how many relationships can be improved if we all just unplugged?

11:15 PM

First day didn’t end as bad and things got easier as the day went on. Spent time with the family and got a lot of studying done. Read my bible and wrote a lot.

One of the biggest changes in my routine since the start of this fast has to do with my phone. Before, my phone went off all day, between Facebook notifications and Twitter SMS messages. Now with all of that turned off, my phone stays relatively quiet. A welcome change.

More observations tomorrow.

- Kyle LeBoeuf

The Facebook Fast: Day 0

Last week I wrote a post about starting what I called a “Facebook fast”, in which I would try my best to stay away from social media for a few days.

When I originally wrote that post out, I had decided to do three days, Tuesday, September 28th-Thursday, September 30th. I have decided to start that tomorrow, Monday, September 28th, and end at 11:59 PM Wednesday, September 29th. My reasoning for this primarily has to do with my school workload this week. I have two tests on Tuesday and one on Wednesday, so that’s time that could be better spent actually studying.

You can find out more about why I am doing this at the blog post I linked above. Suffice to say, I think I spend too much time on Facebook, and I want to find out just how much it affects my life.

Day 1 starts in 45 minutes. I’m ready.

- Kyle

The Digital Media Obsession

Being 23, I have grown up into an era where it is considered a norm to spend hours staring a computer screen, surfing Facebook, watching YouTube.

I often wonder why our generation is so obsessed with digital media. I am just as guilty as the next guy about spending more time on Facebook then I do talking with people face-to-face. I have an iPhone, and I can be seen constantly staring into its small screen: checking Facebook and Twitter, reading articles and blogs, checking text messages. I wonder how much life I miss when I’m staring into the LCD screen? I wonder if my relationship with God and those around me suffers as I escape the world by reading words on a computer screen rather interacting with those around me and pursuing those relationships. For the past two weeks, I have obsessed over this thought, and I’ve decided to try a little experiment.

Next week, on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, I am going to fast from Facebook and Twitter. I am going to delete the applications from my phone and ban myself from visiting either of those websites for 72 hours. I’m going to see where that leads me.

I’m going to see how my day-to-day life changes. I’m going to see if my relationships are different, if I feel closer to God and those around me. I’ll get back to you guys with the results.

Kyle

Stranded

While having dinner with a few friends recently I recollected a story from a few years ago where two friends and I went hiking up a mountain trail in New Mexico and ended up being stranded. Every time this story comes up we get in an arguement about whether or not we got lost, but the fact remains that we found ourselves in a situation where we needed to be rescued.

My friend Daniel has hiked this particular trail several times, so we decided we would make an adventure out of it and hike up the trail. The hike up was tough, bit it was amazing. Beautiful view from the top. But that’s not where the story gets interesting.

We had heard of an alternate route down the mountain and we decided to take another route down and locate it. This particular route was supposed to take us to another well-known trail and would make for a nicer hike down then the way we came, so we decided to take it. The problem was, we never found the point at which we were supposed to shift direction and head towards the other trail, so we ended up stranded on the side of this mountain, with hardly any water and the day starting to wane.

Daniel snapped a pic with his handy iPhone:

Luckily, we found a spot with cell phone signal and managed to get someone to come and pick us up.

So, what’s the point of this story? When I was thinking about this story today, I kinda drew a parallel to our own lives. So many times, we think we know where we are going, so rather than trusting on good direction and judgement, God's direction, we decide to take another route...and we often end up stranded, and in need of rescue.

What would life be like if we just trusted in His direction rather then always looking for another way?