Digital Distractions....Checking Into REAL life: Unplugging from Facebook and such

Unplugging from your Facebook and digital life to trade it in for a REAL one.

http://howto.wired.com/wiki/Sustain_Your_Mortal_Existence_Without_Facebook

Turn to the Ancients

Cranky, argumentative, brilliant, and probably afflicted with the then-unnamed Tourette syndrome, Dr. Samuel Johnson wrote the first English dictionary. All 42,000 definitions of it. On his own. So when Johnson spoke, you listened. The concept of friendship was of particular interest to him, as he deemed it essential to a life fulfilled.

So what would Johnson make of your exile from Facebook? He’d remind you that "life has no pleasure higher or nobler than that of friendship,” but might add, and this is speculation here, that knowing the minutiae of your friends' daily doings is not altogether healthy for a friendship. (If you’re not convinced that relatively ancient intellectuals can teach you something about life, Jonathan Swift has a story to tell you.)

Regarding friends, Johnson also said: “Of the gradual abatement of kindness between friends the beginning is often scarcely discernible by themselves, and the process is continued by petty provocations, and incivilities sometimes peevishly returned, and sometimes contemptuously neglected, which would escape all attention but that of pride, and drop from any memory but that of resentment.” Nobody, however, knows what he meant by this.

Batten Down the Hatches, and Other Maritime Cliches

If you suspect your professional well-being may be in danger should your employer figure out you’re a Luddite who isn’t on Facebook (especially probable if you work for a major technology publication), you should never talk about social networking. Instead, coin a new phrase, such as "baxnus networking." If a coworker asks you what you mean by this, don’t let it take the wind out of your sails. Mutter something under your breath, turn around, and walk away.

Every so often you may find yourself between the devil and the deep blue sea: explaining to your family that you either don’t like them enough to talk to them on Facebook, or you’re better than them for existing without Facebook. Always choose the former, as this will encourage them to gain your affection with bribery.

Expand Your Social Sphere, But Take Care to Ignore the Elderly

There are plenty of other ways to nurture your friendships outside of Facebook. One option is an open house of sorts, in which you invite all your friends over to update you on their lives. This face-to-face interaction is preferable in that it removes emoticons from the equation.

Also, consider joining a club. There are lots of them out there, from book clubs to running clubs. As Dr. Johnson said, “If a man does not make new acquaintance as he advances through life, he will soon find himself left alone. A man, Sir, should keep his friendship in constant repair.” Don’t bother with something decidedly elderly, like a bingo club, as those friends are difficult to communicate with, and by their very nature will not be long-term acquaintances.

Life Outside the Valley

Under mounting social pressure, you may find yourself wavering, quietly mulling a return to Facebook. Like Dr. Johnson’s titular character in Rasselas — who left the comforts of a paradisiacal valley where he was prince in order to adventure around, only to fold and return to said comforts — you are free to yield to the social mecca that is Facebook. While you’re not a prince or a princess, at least probably not, you can pretend to be one on Facebook.

For the stalwarts, heed the Good Doctor’s advice, as voiced through Rasselas’ Imlac: “Do not suffer life to stagnate: It will grow muddy for want of motion; commit yourself again to the current of the world.” We should take this to mean that life is a pond, or perhaps a puddle of some sort, and that Facebook doesn’t necessarily need to be a part of it.