“Hi, my name is Justin, and I’m a Facebook addict.”

Not quite, but when we were told in my communications class that we’d be quitting Facebook for a week, this is the picture that was conjured up in my head. It hasn’t been that bad. I’m not laying on a twin-sized cot, trembling under a teal, wool blanket like I thought I would be. At least not yet. We’ll see what day 2 is like.

I’m actually looking forward to the experiment. I don’t think I’ve ever gone a week without checking in to a social media site at least once…okay, at least ten times, okay probably way more than that but who’s counting? Over the next six days, I’ll be paying attention to the ways in which my online habits change. One thing is for sure, Twitter isn’t nearly as fun when it’s isolated.

Hold on, let me clarify.

I made the comment to Katie the other day that Facebook is starting to become this decade’s Myspace. It’s getting more and more junked up. Pictures you’d only find in chain-letter emails are popping up in the news feed, more and more people are writing blog posts as status updates, and we’re starting to see more and more “like this if you like to breathe” type pictures (due to the changes in the Facebook Pages algorithm).

So I don’t particularly think Facebook is all that great to begin with, but as of right now, it’s the best social media site to stay connected with friends and family, and that’s why I stay on it. Besides, it’s really tough migrating people from one social media site to another (see the two-year user migration from Myspace to Facebook a while back).

As a media platform, I like Twitter better. For me, it’s a lot more useful as a browsing/news source. Because I don’t follow too many people who tweet incoherent things about their day, Twitter is like watching a news cycle all day, there’s not really a whole lot of anecdotal type drama taking place. In other words, THERE IS NO JERRY SPRINGER!

Not that I think my Facebook feed looks like a chaotic S storm or anything, but there is something to be said about being from a small North Texas town. Besides, no matter where you’re from or who you’re friends with, Facebook is the ultimate sociological study. I can’t even consider how many times I’ve asked myself, why are they posting that as a status update for the world to read?

Facebook is like waiting in an oil change lobby and becoming curiously interested in Judge Joe Brown on a nineteen inch color TV, just because it’s the only thing to do (and because, is this for real?).

Maybe this experiment will say more about me and how I’m not really ready to give up Facebook (as I often think I want to). We’ll see. I’ll try to keep up with this as the days go by.

I’m sure my thoughts will change, maybe even by a lot.

On day 1, I already know this:
1. The first thing I did this morning was click on the fb tab in my browser bar. It was a habit I didn’t know I had. I immediately x’ed out and deleted the tab from my firefox and safari browser bar.
2. Facebook is integrated into many avenues I was unaware of, such as in a Marketstreet email I received earlier today. I clicked on a story I wanted to read and it took me to a facebook page. I x’ed out, but not before I saw that I had 7 notifications.
3. I read a blog entry from someone I work with and clicked on a link to their fb profile to add them as a friend, but I didn’t realize that I was going to facebook until I saw 14 notifications at the top, and I quickly x’ed out. It didn’t register in my brain that adding someone as a friend on Facebook was going to take me to Facebook. That’s either pretty deep, or I’m pretty dumb.

On my first day, I accidentally accessed facebook on three separate occasions, but I didn’t stick around. I closed my tab immediately each time. I really want this experiment to work. If I was smart, I would have logged out so that I’d show up to a login page if I made a mistake.

I only found myself wanting to purposefully bring the site up one time. I was surprised by that. I thought it would be a lot more.