Sabbath

I've been thinking about taking a Sabbath from social networking. Obviously, I haven't fully committed to the idea, since here I am blogging about it - a de-facto tool of social networking. But, seriously, I've noticed recently how addicted I actually am to technology. To being "plugged in", if you forgive me such a cliche phrase. I've always been a lover of technology, of course, but this rather serious addiction began when I got my Eris [that is, for those of you unfamiliar with certain new technologies, my phone]. It was bad enough that I checked my email/facebook/google reader right before I left for work, assoonas i got home from work, then every five seconds between then and the time I went to bed. Now I have the capability of being connected every second of the day. As soon as an email comes in, I know about it. Within ten seconds I can almost guarantee that I've read it, and either deleted it or archived it in the proper folder. I can check facebook a bajillion times a day.


Even though I don't do anything on facebook. Even though I don't need to check those emails. Even though the world will not end  if I decide to wait five minutes to check that email, or to reply to that text, or to check to see if I have a text, or if someone's called me, or if someone's done something interesting enough to post in on their facebook wall. But, I am, addicted. And so I check.

I don't use my computer that much, now that I have my phone, but when I'm on it, it feels impossible to go away. I'll be invisible on gchat, but wait around for someone interesting to get on so I can talk to them, or maybe even get on to see if they'll talk to me [don't judge, I know you've done that too]. I'll refresh the facebook page overandover to see if anyone has done anything interesting, commented on anyone's photo, posted photos, written on someone's wall, or anything remotely of [no] consequence since I last refreshed it. And, if that fails, I can always find someone new to stalk.

Where does this all lead? To a waste of time. Yet somehow, though I've deleted my facebook page four times in the last few months, I always worry that I'll be completely missing out if I don't stay online. So I sign back in. I think I suffer from too much connectedness. From too many options [well, that's a discussion for a different post]. So I'm working on the Sabbath. Of course, being me, I have to think about/weigh all the options before I commit to something. And that might be just the problem - not wanting to actually commit to unplugging.

So here I go, unplugging for the night. If you have any thoughts/comments/suggestions based on previous experience, or just thoughts in general about this, I'd love to hear it.