On Friday I deleted Facebook. Yeah, I know. Big step. Especially considering that I have been extraordinarily active for years now, sharing photos, science stories, environmental pleas, and political commentary. Indeed, I have been hyperactive at times. Facebook has/had become a focal point in my daily routine. I used it as a headline conglomerator, scanning dozens of news services from the standards of CNN and Fox to obscure (for the average person) science journal feeds. I used it to follow authors, actors, scientist, politicians, religious figures, sports personalities, etc. I uploaded hundreds, if not thousands, of photos from this history of mine and my families life.

I had over 400 friends, many of whom I had never, ever met. Not to discount those 400+ friends online, everyone of whom was an incredible, special person in their own right. Some of them I knew back in high school or junior high, and were people I was much to shy (socially awkward as my daughter says) or scared to talk to back then. Some of them were the could have been’s of life. People who come in and out of your life for brief times, and if things took a slight curve could have been closer friends. Some were friends of friends, who I never met, but were part of the fabric of the live of people I knew. People that made them whole. So I let them in. My life is probably richer for the time I got to connect in the cloud, and I care about many of them.

And yet it was to much. I often sat on the couch “watching” TV or a movie with the family, only I was checking The Book, or posting to it. I’d have the phone out at Wal-Mart, Target, the library, work (well, not actually at my desk), even church. Often I failed to listen to my family during conversations. Oh, I would hear them. But I was listening to The Book.

Last week was a wake up call. I had opened a letter a few weeks ago from the school to my daughter regarding RSVPing for her academic letter ceremony. It was due last Wednesday. I opened it while checking in on the computer, read the first couple of lines congratulating her her accomplishment, and set it down. It was still on the end table on Thursday afternoon, after missing the RSVP deadline for her to get into the program. I am hoping that just means her name won’t be printed in the paper program, and that she will be allowed to walk in the letter ceremony. But for all I know, she may not be. And all cause I was updating my status.

I wigged out on myself a bit after that. And resolved that this had to change. I have a real family in the house, not some extended Facebook family out there on the interwebs, but a real, beautiful, smiling (most of the time) family. How much time have I wasted on the computer or the phone when I could have been concentrating on my uber talented kids and my incredible wife? What could I have taught them, and what could they have taught me? I still have a few years left before they move on and out, perhaps I should use them more wisely then I have to date.

So I sent out a post Friday morning, alerting the world I had come to know and feel a part of that I was leaving. And Friday afternoon after work, I pushed the delete button on Faceboook. On Saturday I did the same thing with Snapchat, which I had never published on anyway, but occasionally used to check in n a few friends and my daughters. And Saturday afternoon I tried to delete Instagram, but it wouldn’t let me, trying to connect to Facebook first, which I no longer had. So I instead booted all my followers and unfollowed everyone. The Facebook, Messenger, Snapchat, and Pinterest apps all came off my phone. The only thing I left alone was Twitter. It isn’t as easy as Facebook for news following, and there are even more low information, moronic, stupid people saying stupid shit in the Twitterverse then there was in FacebookLand. But it’s quicker, and far easier, to give a quick shout out about something without it taking away from the rest of your day. So Twitter stays.

As will this blog. Heck, this might get more of a workout, as many of what my wife used to call “long posts that nobody reads” on Facebook would likely make excellent short posts here in the blogosphere. Such as this entry, written on an Embraer 175 on the way to Texas while Hugh Jackman sings “From Now On” off “The Greatest Showman” soundtrack. Odd timing that song comes on while I write this paragraph.

My complete abandonment of Facebook might not last all that long, however. There has been pushback from certain quarters of my real world. Those photos? I have spent months of humanhours uploading, sorting, managing, editing, and sharing those albums. They were the single source of sharing images with many of my immediate family members, others including my parents and in-laws, and via my wife and daughters, their friends. I pulled the plug, and those shared albums of family vacations, orchestra, choir, and theatre performances, and family photos, all went poof into the dark night of the dark corners of the web. Did I have a right to take that away from them?

So what to do? I have a Google Photo Drive for cell image backup, and I shared that with my folks, but it might be a pain to reload 17+ years of pictures there, album them, and share them. As it turns out, Facebook (and most of the other apps, I have discovered) gives you 14 days to change your mind. Having free time the last 24+ hours has given me some time to give clarity. Maybe I will try to go back, but limit my presence to the household and parents. And also only use it as a photo album storage and sharing platform. Unfollow and unfriend virtually everyone else, and unlike everything else. I don’t need my political, environmental, and scientific rants out there. And basic social media safety etiquette says that only family should see photos of family. Change my Facebook name to something not connected with my real name, leave the app off my phone, and give it a try.

And work on sorting and albuming all those photos on a drive, just in case I get sucked backed in, and my wife needs to take over management of the family image enterprise.