One More Week: Final Analysis

So here we are in April.  Lent isn’t over for another week, and I’ve already gone 40 days without using Facebook because I didn’t realize that Catholics are cheaters.  As I found out midway through this wonderful season of denial, there are actually 47 days between Fat Tuesday and Easter Sunday.  But Lent is only considered to be 40 days long, because, when “fasting” for Lent, one is permitted to take a break every Sunday.  Like I said, Catholics are cheaters.

But that’s understandable.  If I were fasting for real, it would be nice to have food in my belly at least once a week.  It might even prevent disagreeable side effects like malnutrition or death.  Hoewever, there’s no reason to break the fast for something silly like checking to see what my sister’s cat is up to this evening (I can just text her to find that out, after all).  So, I’ve decided to stay strong in my convictions and resist the urge to use Facebook until Lent is officially over. 

I’ll admit there have been times when I’ve wanted to check my news feed.  And while denying myself the use of one non-vital website/communication tool hasn’t been terribly difficult, it has been a tad trying at times.  I still feel like I’m missing something when I only check my email and nothing else.  “That seemed too quick,” I say.  I occasionally have the urge to simply browse my news feed and see if anybody I know has posted anything interesting.  But I can’t.  Now and again I’ve also felt disconnected from my acquaintances and, to a degree, from the world around me.  But because I know I’m going to start using Facebook again soon, I haven’t developed new channels of communication to replace it.  I haven’t started reading the newspaper again, or called old friends, or thrown myself headlong into Twitter like I could have (though I have enjoyed getting to know Twitter better). 

It’s almost like, if I really want to get something meaningful out of this whole experience, I should do those things, and I should keep my Facebook account suspended for the rest of the year.  But on the other hand, it has made me think and examine some things.  For instance, as I write about my use of Facebook now, I realize that I—and probably most other people too—value communication of information that isn’t necessarily vital to us.  Sure, we all value a one-on-one discussion with our closest friends.  But—and this has become more apparent in the “information age”—we absolutely love trivia.  We don’t need to know that our friend who we haven’t spoken to in years is having a baby.  Or that something is upsetting the Kardashian sisters.  But that sort of stuff is fun to know.  And we’ll spend all sorts of time and energy learning about those types of things because they’re entertaining.  And they keep us “in the loop” with what our friends are talking about, meaning they could come up in conversation, when we’re actually having meaningful interactions with other people.

But that’s enough about that.  In the end, this was a fun little experiment, and I’m happy with the fact that, for a little while at least, it got me away from something that was wasting my time, and gave me something to write a few blogs about, and showed me that I can in fact succeed at this whole Lent thing, without cheating.  Unless of course I give in between now and next Sunday.

PS – Recommended reading: Amusing Ourselves to Death, by Neil Postman. Written for the TV Age, it applies even more so to the Internet Age.