2.2. On/Off Experiment Part 1

I am on Facebook all the time. Facebook is where I catch up on the current news, entertainment, and cute cat videos. For my on/off experiment, I decided to quit Facebook. It was really difficult on first day because I turn on Facebook on my phone the minute I wake up in the morning. I usually check Facebook to look at the current news and see if any of my friends has a birthday that day. Few hours had passed on my first day without Facebook and I already felt so isolated and lonely. I missed the like button and felt like I was missing out.

To see the current news, I went onto CNN.com. It was a different experience for me to read the news on CNN because I am so used to Facebook's short and summarized news. Facebook also has comment section where I can go on to read other's opinion, but CNN.com did not have this feature which made me feel more lonely. I kept wondered, what are others saying about this or that news? I wanted to talk to people about the current news, so I went to my roommate's room and started a conversation with her. We have been both busy with school and work; and haven't talked to each other for a while. We talked about what was going on at our school and New York City. It was really refreshing to finally talk to someone in person and it made feel less lonely. I also thought that it was a better conversation as well because you could read the person's body language when talking in person and you didn't have to wait for their response like you would online.

A day without Facebook was definitely difficult for me. I felt very isolated and frustrated. I was really attempted to go onto Facebook because I wanted to see what was going on in the world. However, it made to do a different action such as talking to people in person and it was good exercise. When you are too consumed by the digital world, you forget to talk to real people about real subject. Turning off Facebook actually made me feel part of the real world again.