Severing Your Technological Umbilical Chord

I had recently taken a couple of camping trips into the wilderness to sort of get away from it all & reconnect with nature. It was refreshing to take in the natural environment & get away from my computer & cell phone for a change. The first thing I noticed was the silence. Not just the silence of being out of the city, but the complete & utter silence from my phone. No more calls. No more texts. No more Facebook updates buzzing my pocket every 5 seconds. It was clear to me immediately how much I didn't really need it.

On my last trip, while gazing at this beautiful river running through the forest, I began to examine my life & just how I'd been spending my time the last few years. I started to realize just how dependent I had allowed myself to become on Facebook in particular. This revelation sort of left a deep pit in my stomach as I thought about all the hours I'd spent uploading, tagging, commenting & writing perhaps somewhat hollow posts, in an effort to avoid the somewhat frequent snickers that often arose from attempting anything philosophical. It seems people aren't generally really looking to hear your ideas on Facebook as much as the social scoop, the goings on.

All at once, I could see just how jacked into the internet "matrix" I had become & how Facebook had been this invisible force that sat on my shoulders day after day, frequently beckoning me to log on, as if whispering in my ear to go and see what was happening in the virtual world. It became clear to me that I was actually really tired of having to do that just to know what was happening with people. I started thinking about what life was like before social networks(Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, etc.) and seemed to remember life having more of a natural ebb & flow; an existence not governed by anything but one's own exploratory nature & the natural course of daily experiences. 

Now it seems, not just for myself, but for many of the people that I've had the privilege of knowing, that social platforms are becoming the ultimate medium for planning nearly all of life's daily encounters. I mean, I've rarely known what was going on for some time, except what Facebook seemed to be telling me & this phenomenon doesn't seem to be showing any signs of slowing. Virtually every branch of my family has joined Facebook to date. Even my grandmother seems to have become somewhat obsessed with Facebook games. It seems to be a phenomenon that has become so far-reaching, for millions & millions of people, the world over & much like the matrix of this illusory, quantum, universe we live in...it's all around us...and it's growing.

So, in an effort to get back to the basics & simplify my life; to reconnect with nature & my spiritual side; I shut down my long time running, heavily invested in, Facebook account & let me tell you...it feels good! :)