I don’t know how many of you out there participate in giving something up for lent, but if you are, how about Facebook. Really, that’s just what a WallStreet Journal Report is talking about. Here’s a bit of it:
Ms. Wentland, who is 38, recently got in touch with a guy she had last seen three decades ago when, at the age of nine, they acted in a school play together. Within the comfy confines of Facebook’s blue-and-white pages, he confided he’d once had a crush on her.
That was a total rush — until Ms. Wentland paused to ponder the point of such ephemeral connections. They were fun, yes, but they took up more time than she cared to calculate. It had been ages since she’d sat on the floor and played trains with her six-year-old son or baked cookies with her three-year-old daughter.
“I have a real life here, with children, a husband and a job. They need my attention and energy,” Ms. Wentland says.
A few months ago, she tried to limit herself to online networking once a week. Facebook Friday, she called it. “I don’t think it lasted a week,” Ms. Wentland says. “I just couldn’t do it.”
She’s hopeful that putting her renunciation of Facebook in the spiritual context of Lent will help. She plans to use some of the time she would have spent online in prayerful reflection. She’s also joined an online quitting-Facebook-for-Lent support group. (Since the group is hosted on Facebook, none of the members — in theory, at least — will be logging on to comfort one another during their days of trial.)
College students who have abstained from Facebook for Lent in recent years say it was brutal, but valuable. Whitley Leiss, now a junior at Texas Christian University, slipped up only once, on her birthday, when she was desperate to see the well-wishes posted for her. She asked a roommate to log into her account and read them aloud while she averted her eyes from the screen. When Lent ended, she logged on to find dozens of messages waiting and strangely little desire to answer them.
“I saw all that I had missed,” Ms. Leiss said. “And I realized I hadn’t missed anything.” She also learned, she says, who her true friends were — those who would take the radically retro step of calling or emailing to stay in touch.
What do you think? Do you need to limit your social networking to refocus your spiritual life?
I’m just glad this was about Facebook, and not Twitter.
LINK: Status: Dad Wonders If He Can Last All of Lent Without Facebook
I am so passionate about lent. It’s one of my favorite times because I have the time to step back and look at my spiritual life and make corrections. I think social networking gets in the way of making time for God. Not only for me, but also for most of my youth. We talked about Lent and giving up facebook this past Sunday and the youth said they could never give up Facebook for more than a week. While I challenged them to, asking them to pray about it, I don’t think most of them will give up facebook. I hope some do though, including myself…I’m afriad to loose contact with my friends and family that long but what better excuse to visit them in person is there? 🙂 we’ll see on Wednesday.
I probably wouldn’t give up Facebook for Lent. Facebook, like a lot of things on the internet can be abused and overused. I use it to stay connected with my youth, to encourage them, to let them know what is going on. It would almost be like asking someone to give up email….remember the old days when people used email?
I am new viewer of this blog and look forward to checking out its insight throughout the week moving forward. I learned about it at the conference this weekend. Great stuff! To comment on the giving up facebook. Hmmm.. depends on how strong your other connections are with the youth. I prayed about what to give up and decided to give up my favorite show 24. However, I have neglected to create a facebook page as yet so it really wasn’t something to place on the scale of decision. I am going to be creating a facebook very soon. I am only 26 and I am already out of tune I guess. I’ve known about facebook, but it hadn’t interested me until I learned this is a better way to stay connected with the kids. Luckily, my wife(the other youth leader) has a facebook and has already been communicating with the kids.