Wake up: update twitter. Get home from school: update Twitter. An hour later: three-hour stalkbook (Facebook stalking) session. Ten o’clock emerges and you realize you have yet to start that AP World packet that’s due tomorrow.
Facebook is a place to keep in touch with friends that have moved away or people you don’t often get to see, but we seem to be consuming more and more time mindlessly clicking through pages and pages of profiles and photos. Though you may feel that that first of the morning tweet was necessary, let’s face it: it was not. Is it really that crucial to log into your account as you are out to eat with family or spending time with friends?
Networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter lack normal face-to-face, social interaction. It is important to seek face-to-face interaction with someone to understand facial expressions, body language and social cues. When you write on someone’s wall, you don’t witness how he or she really reacts.
Instead of keeping up a wall-to-wall with everyday friends, talk on the phone; yes, your phone does more than text, or go meet them somewhere to talk and spend time together.
Rather than wasting away your time creeping on Facebook profiles, why not go outside? Take a walk or go for a run to get some (most likely) much-needed exercise. Or sit down, crack open a book...and read! Or, just to be a bit crazy, maybe you could finish that homework you know you have piling up on your table.
Whatever you choose to do, choose to do something that excludes the technological time wasters. I challenge you to go without the Facebook and Twitter updates for a week. If this seems impossible, limit your “creeping” sessions to just fifteen minutes per day.
RACHEL GILMAN
