We all have so much abundance in our lives. Abundance of material things, food, information but not enough time. Time to devote to the people and things we love doing. With the emergence of the internet came also a whole new abundance of problems. We now have access to information within seconds that we once would have to go to the library to locate or do some reasearching to find out. Along with the internet came an entirely new way of communicating with others. Social networking. Twitter. Facebook. Email. Blogs. YouTube. With the entrance of social networking and media sites we are now bombarded, yes I said BOMBARDED with information. I know if my best friends cat just got sick and what she is cooking for dinner. Not only do I know what she is cooking for dinner but since she is my "friend" on facebook, twitter and many other networking sites I know the exact time she began to cook for her family (minus the few seconds she took to Tweet and post on Facebook about the info) but I am also privvy to the information that her husband is running late for dinner, her son just went to the bathroom and her garbage disposal is clogged. Now I am not knocking my friend. I am as much at fault if NOT MORE because I have chosen to delay the cooking of my family's evening meal so I can find these pertinent things out. Instead of then choosing to simply take her information and move on with my evening I decide I need to one up her and post a picture of our now delayed dinner on all my social networking sites. You get the idea. REALLY?! Have we become this obsessed with the goings on of other people that we are ignoring our lives and living vicariously through others? Let's re-think about what is important in our lives and refocus our priorities. Do we really need all of information? While I agree that the internet and social networking have thier benefits I also feel that they have thier own downfalls that don't always measure up to thier benefits.
 
So I have decided to take a break for two weeks from facebook, which seems to be my main downfall. I'll be honest with myself here... in a week's time I probably spend about 5 hours accumulated time on this particular site browsing through pictures, looking at posts etc. Somewhere out in the internet world I do have a twitter account but I don't even remember the user name so I don't feel I need to abstain. I will however continue to respond to emails received through facebook since for many people whom I associate with on a daily basis that is thier main way of communicating with me versus a direct email in my private email inbox. So from 1/31/2011-2/13/2011 I will not browse friends facebook accounts, look at pictures and get caught up in the daily facebook drama that many of my facebook friends (however not all) participate in. I will delete 15 "internet media related" things from my life permanently. Whether they are certain blogs I suscribe to, freecycle emails that I receive (about 20-50 per day), and various other time-wasters that I have allowed to take control of some of my precious free time that could be spent doing more meaningful and productive things. I will return to blog about my week and the fifteen things I eliminated.