Ugh, so I know that Facebook is for old people, but I am not really young and I'm not getting any younger. So sue me: I still go on Facebook, despite previous New Year's resolutions about not letting it waste too much of my time. It's hard not to: friends have cute pictures of babies, people spread news, and I'm pals with a lot of funny, intriguing people. And I can always use the excuse that I need to spread myself around in order to get my name and my work out there.

But I need to stop idly scrolling through the newsfeed, because that's typically where I find the things that bring me down. Sometimes I see those status updates where one friend posts on another friend's wall in a way that's intended to advertise their relationship to everyone else. Or there's a photo of a group of people I know at an event that I wasn't invited to. And my reaction is outrage, because people need to stop behaving in a way that is not acceptable to me. But the correct reaction is that I need to stop thinking that I have no control over this type of information. I have friends who exist off Facebook, first of all, and so far we haven't had a falling-out because I didn't post "Can't wait to see you tonight xoxox" on their walls. Meanwhile, people hang out without me all the time and to be perfectly honest most of the time I probably didn't even want to be there because I'm too tired or it's cold or I shouldn't be spending money or it's late or whatever. If I just avoid it I won't feel that sense of missing out.

Meanwhile, there are a lot of other good reasons to just try and limit my interaction with it. For instance: 

Facebook steals creativity. It just does. It's designed to keep you looking back and not doing more fulfilling things. And creativity doesn't even have to mean writing a novel or whatnot. It can mean reading or remembering to do things around the house or call people I need to or that I just have other things to do.

Facebook makes me annoyed by people I like in real life. Because sometimes they write in a certain manner or post certain things that rub me the wrong way and I start conflating the wonderful, real-life version of that person with the things they type on Facebook. I know for a fact that my Facebook account is not a 100% replica of my own personality: I omit things, I blow things up to drive conversation, I'm probably more of a jerk. So I can stop thinking that the Facebook version of my real-life friends is a more-annoying version of the person I know and love in 3-D.

This is more of a Twitter thing but it can also happen on Facebook--these are places where you can find out if people are mad at you. On both social media platforms I've gotten into tiffs with people and then, out of curiosity, checked out to see if they were discussing the tiff on their account. They were. Now aren't I glad I know that? Isn't that totally essential to my existence? Wasn't that a completely valuable use of my time on this planet? Here are a few examples of what those fights were about: a podcast; an episode of "Girls"; cats. Very important stuff.

I don't have a great game plan in place so far. I'll try not to check it on the weekends.* I'm going to try not to check it during the day except when I definitely don't have anything better to do.** It's hard, because I've adjusted to the "multi-tasking" (some might say distracted) model of productivity where I do ten minutes of something, then take a "break" to skim and article or look at Facebook, then do another five minutes and whatnot. I know it's not the best. I have a feeling that like with any sort of new habit, it's going to involve some willpower. Possibly breaking out Antisocial.

Also, again, it just shames me that this is even a thing I'm talking about. I of course wish I was on Zorpblatt or whatever the teens were using or was one of those super-mysterious people who only drops by Facebook three times a year to upload a photo of a service trip I took to an amazing country or something, but I'm lame and weak. And it's a new year so maybe I will do better.

*I already broke this. Maybe I will do better.

**See first asterisk.