Being off of Facebook

      At a church conference at the beginning of March I decided to deactivate my Facebook account. It is something I considered in the past, but never actually did. The whole not being able to be reached 24/7, and having more real relationships in life were appealing. (I don't like how Facebook shows if you've read a chat, this allows the person on the other end to think that you are purposely avoiding them, if it takes awhile for you to respond.) One of my friends, Macheala deactivated her account back in December. I remember being sad that she had. In all honesty that's so weird. I could still literally call her and visit her whenever I wanted. Her going off of Facebook did not weaken are friendship at all, maybe it even strengthened it, due to it being a little harder to reach out to her. A couple of my other friends never had Facebook or deleted it, and also feel a sense of freedom and happiness.
 
     So back to the conference, God pointed out to me that Facebook was becoming to important in my life. I would have thoughts throughout the day like, wow that would be great to post of Facebook. But why? To increase my self-esteem when a group of people "liked" my status? I would also go on Facebook, multiple times of day for no reason at all. It was an addiction. A bad addiction. It bred jealousy. Suddenly I was wondering why my pictures weren't getting as many likes as some of my "mutual" friends. I would compare my lives to the lives of others, and see what my life was lacking. I wanted the things other people had, whether consciously aware of it or subconsciously. Subconsciously I became more self conscious.

     I went back to Facebook for 5 days last week. Not because I relapsed, but because I needed to figure out summer housing. Although I was pretty good at keeping off of it those 5 days I started experiencing negative emotions. Annoyance, and good old jealousy. I have these moments sometimes where I'm just so sick of being single, and overthink it too much. Facebook helps encourage this thought process within me. Showing pictures of my friends and their significant others, and how happy they are. Especially within my church. Once you get in a relationship in my church its almost certain to be lifelong and lead to marriage. This makes me wonder where my guy is. My friends have found their "likely" husbands my age and younger. Within my family my brother started dating his now wife at 18, and my parents started dating when my mom was 19. Why am I not experiencing this. Why is it being prolonged in my life. Where's my person to love, where's my promise ring, etc... How lucky are these people? I think of the possibility of not meeting someone and staying single the rest of my life. I look at the single ladies at my church who long to be married but they aren't. I've become a professional third wheel with my friends. I do love that they are in relationships, and how happy they are but I can't help to think about my own life. How my mom said 4 years ago, I know your time is coming "soon". Is she shocked nothings happened in those 4 years? Am I nor relationship material?

        The devil uses media in general to confuse people, and social media is one of those things he uses to make self-esteem drop. We get addicted to it, and actually think its benefiting us when its actually hurting us instead. I lay down the thoughts of not being fully content with my singleness at God's feet. Jealousy is an ugly emotion, that isn't Christlike. It's hard not to get in sinful habits of thoughts however in a broken society like ours.

    Finally, do I miss anything about Facebook. Being off of Facebook has been surprisingly simple, although I do find myself on YouTube a ton now, which may be another issue. The two things I miss are is advertising my  blog. I went from 60+ reads to under 10. (I'd be surprised if you're reading this right now honestly) and pictures. A couple times I've been out with friends and one of my friends will mention the others picture they had posted on Facebook. When this happens, I am just completely clueless. But that might actually be okay. Missing events to is another thing, although it hasn't appeared to have happened to me yet. Some things are only really advertised online and not so much in person. These include theatre productions, church events, group hangouts etc. (This blogpost is much longer than I intended it to be.)