This is the statement I had to accept a few weeks back. I found myself living more in the virtual world than the real one. Whenever something exciting would happen in my life and I found myself telling my Facebook friends before my own family. If I was frustrated with my job I would vent to my Facebook fam. Listening for advice from friends I hadn’t seen in twenty years or more. Then I started thinking, people are becoming so antisocial that eventually we will be living solely by way of the internet. I attend college online (shout out to CUNY). I shop for clothes on the net (shout out to Macy’s). I also watch movies and shop for music via the net (shout out to Amazon, iTunes). Many people (of course not me – LOL) find sexual satisfaction by way of the adult sites (shout out to Pinky, Gianna Micheals, and Lacey Duvalle – big fan). Instead of cheating, people are having online affairs and sexting. I pay most of my bills online. Many people I know work from home via the information highway. Okay so when do we leave the house and live?
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I had to ask myself, am I addicted to the net? And even worse, am I addicted to Facebook. I found myself checking for updates and status reports more than the local weather. I saw hours at my job passing by while I would sit and have chat sessions with people that I wouldn’t call if they lived across the street. Okay now I started thinking WTF? I came across people I deleted out of my mental database so many years ago that I didn’t know if they were dead or alive. Old girlfriends, annoying hanger-ons, pests and enemies were now part of my 400 friends.
Now I had to make a crucial decision, do I want to deactivate my Facebook account and work on my internet addiction? I say ‘deactivate’ because they will not allow you delete your account. It is always waiting there in cyber space for to put in your user name and password to reactivate at any given time. I decided to make the plunge. I pulled the plug and went cold turkey. The first week was no sweat. I was like I am good. Then I started to find reasons as to why I needed to go back on my page. I need to find so and so’s number. I need to grab a picture of whatever. I need to do business with someone on my page. I would activate and deactivate my page so many times that eventually I was like why not just keep it active and go on as needed. So I left the page up. When I look at the updates, it was like I never left. People complaining about jobs, baby fathers and mothers, people grateful that it was Friday and sorry it was Monday. I asked myself what did I come back for again??
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I have decided to quit Facebook again, and this time I may be gone for good – who knows? As I look at how much we are depended on the net it is a little scary. Smart phones, iPads, laptops, PC’s, cable interfaces and more keep us connected at all times. I just read an article that the President has the power to shut down the net for four months without the approval of Congress. As someone said to me, should that ever h
