Addiction Revealed

I have always been involved with social media.  I remember I created a myspace that connected me with a lot of my friends who I usually do not see on a daily basis.  Then I remembered creating xanga which allowed me to blog and rant about things while allowing followers to read a bit of what's on my mind.  Then I joined blogger because xanga disappeared.  Then as this whole social media progressed my involved as well progressed.  Facebook was finally a part of my life and at first it was just a way to connect to old friends from high school and to keep in touch with my college friends.  But I didn't truly dive into the whole social media until I got my first smart phone, my iphone.  Oh that started the downward spiral of my addiction.

Yes addiction, it may seem like a strong word to use for a social media that only allows me to share my pictures and activities that I do to those who follow me which are my friends and family since I have my FB on private setting.  And honestly as a whole it's not really that bad.  Having a FB account helped me interact with various people who I usually do not, find people who I have lost contact with, and rejoice with great news that people post.  So in all reality having a FB can be a great thing.  And I say "can" because it all depends on how much of it is a part of your life.

Having a smart phone with an app and a notification ability has caused me to constantly check my phone.  And since I always have my phone, I found myself always on FB.  I would be on vacation with my family and checking FB.  We would be looking around the Colosseum and I found myself checking FB.  We're having dinner as a family and I found myself checking FB.  I wouldn't admit how much FB was consuming my life and time.  Yes FB helped me stay in contact with people I usually do not talk to, yes it allowed our family to see the girls grow up and it was a great venue to contact people...but it was something that became an idol.  The first thing I would do when my alarm rang was check FB...at I knew that I had to do something.

So I decided to step away from FB for this month.  And it was this decision that exposed my heart.  It has only been 9 days since I stepped away from FB and I could feel myself gravitating typing out facebook on safari since I deleted the app from my phone.  It's only been 9 days and there has been countless times I'm so tempted to check FB.  My heart was crying out...my idol was being revealed and it's been great to finally destroy this idol.  I need to make sure that my perspective on FB changes within this month so when I finally go back to FB, I wouldn't have a hold on me and control or consume my time.  It's so funny how subtle it was that this idol was created.  I didn't even think it was possible but that's how it goes, sometimes things that are not necessarily wrong starts to consume our lives and we do not realize how much we allowed it to take a hold of us.

I pray that other FB users are more aware of their times and their usage on FB.  That they do not allow it to consume their time and take away from other things that are more important.