Do you use Facebook rather regularly? If you want to try a humbling and eye-opening experiment, give it up for at least two weeks. Even better, go a month or more if you have the strength. (Which becomes easier if you can make it to the two week mark.)
See if anyone uses Messenger to check up on you. Or sends you a text or calls if they have your phone number.
Does anyone post links on your page or tag you in comments because you’re on their mind?
First Break
Here’s what I learned when I took a Facebook break the first time:
- No one noticed I wasn’t posting.
- People did tag me in comments and share links on my page, though.
- No one called or texted to comment on my decreased Facebook presence.
I wasn’t entirely off of Facebook, but I would sometimes go days without posting anything or even looking at my feed. Which is not the norm for me.
And I would eventually respond if people tagged me or posted on my page.
I thought about certain people whose posts I often commented on. I missed them but I just couldn’t do Facebook for the last few months of 2017. I tried in October, but…I just couldn’t.
I was wrestling with demons I haven’t yet publicly posted about. I had fallen into a depression and Facebook only exacerbated it. There’s a lot of good that comes from FB but also a lot of crap. I just wasn’t up for all the B.S.
Around Christmas I did send certain people I hadn’t heard from in a while messages. People who had done something nice for me during the year, or had in some way impressed me.
But I didn’t reach out to everyone. I took it for granted those people would be there when I had the energy to get in touch.
I’ll come back to that later…
Second Break
We took a trip January 25 through February 12. We were gone just shy of three weeks.
For two of those weeks I didn’t have Internet access at all. We were on a cruise and paying the $300 for the ship’s Internet plan was too rich for our blood.
I was curious if anyone would notice I was gone again. I was curious if I would even care that I was gone again.
The Revelation
What I realized was:
- There are people I can only connect with via Facebook because they live in other states. I enjoy their posts and miss them when I’m away from FB for an extended period of time.
- I actually found myself having Instagram withdrawals more so than Facebook.
- Twitter has been great for meeting some interesting people, but I don’t really use it and I think I’m about ready to ditch it entirely.
- One person, an old friend from college, did realize I was gone the second time and left a note on my Facebook page asking where I was. That made me feel good.
Who I Took for Granted
There was one person who used to comment on almost all of my Facebook posts, a.e. King.
During and after the First Break, I sort of noticed she wasn’t commenting anymore, but since I wasn’t really posting I figured my stuff might not be hitting her feed. You know how Facebook does. You don’t always see everything everyone posts, and sometimes it can be days before it hits your feed.
I had been thinking I needed to just message her and tell her hello, but I never did.
Shortly before we left for our trip, I saw a post on a friend’s page: Alice, who was a.e.’s niece –and the one who had introduced us in the first place. She had posted that her aunt, a.e., had died.
The Blow
I felt like someone had punched me in the stomach. I immediately Messenger-ed Alice to ask what had happened.
Turns out a.e., a.k.a. Ann, hadn’t been doing well for months, but she didn’t tell anyone just how bad she really was. Not until a couple of weeks before her death, when she was hospitalized for the second time in a month and was diagnosed with all manner of ailments that she decided to decline medical intervention for.
Alice and her siblings made it in time to see her at least alert and able to communicate a bit before she passed.
You’d think I would’ve learned.
Last summer a similar thing happened when Wayne’s uncle died. We knew he had cancer but no one had ever told us he’d been admitted to hospice. Which was our fault for not staying in touch better.
Still, it was a huge blow. We never got a chance to tell Jerry how much we appreciated all the things he’d done for us over the years. All the great talks we’ve had. All the fun family gatherings.
Same with a.e. I hope she knew how much I admired her clever wit, or how big a kick I got out of seeing her comments. She had such a magical way with words that blew me away. A true wordsmith with a natural knack for turning a phrase.
The Reminder
It’s another harsh and shocking reminder not to take life or the people in it for granted. You don’t know how long anyone has –you or them.
If you haven’t heard from someone in a while, reach out. If you’re friends on Facebook, tag them in a post you think they might enjoy. Send them a quick message to say hello. It can literally be that short. “Hello.” Or, “Hello. Just thinking about you.”
Or write them, or call, or invite them over for dinner, out to lunch, or make a date to go see a movie.
I know we’re all so busy with our lives, with our technology, etc. But it is possible to put all that aside for a moment to let the people we really care about know that they’re in our minds and on hearts.