What is it about Facebook that makes it so addicting? I don’t think I used to have a Facebook problem, but I do now.  I’m a Facebookaholic (which, according to Urban Dictionary, is a real thing).

Awhile back I did a no reading challenge for The Artist’s Way. In addition to staying away from books, I also limited my Facebook time to 15 minutes once a day. Usually at the end of the day. During those 15 minutes I could respond to messages, and watch all the stupid cat videos that I wanted… provided that once that 15 minutes was over I was logging off the site, stepping away from my computer and doing something else with my time.

I mean, I don’t think I’ve ever left an impromptu Facebook browsing session feeling fulfilled and happy with myself. As I write this post, I have gotten several urges to check to see if anyone has liked my post about the guy who mistook the feminist text in my hand for some sort of sex manual/ soft-core porn novel. But I will not plug the letter “F” into the search bar (because my browser’s memory only needs one letter to satisfy my addiction), unless it is to write FU Facebook.

I run a Facebook page for Creative Life and for this blog, so I will not be severing my ties with “The Social Network” completely (Cop out? Probably), but I will cease to consider it as a valid use of time when I have “a second to kill.” No one ever killed a second on Facebook. What was the Pringles slogan? “You can’t eat just one.”

Besides, this nice little “social networking” website does nothing but make me feel insecure. In the Facebook world, your worth and the number of likes your average status update receives is positively correlated. How many birthday wishes did you receive? Did your post about Robin Williams receive a minimum of 100 likes? When you ask a question, do people answer? When you post an obnoxiously long status update with a test at the end to see if your “friends” actually read it in full, are you satisfied?

Facebook provides such an artificial way to get to know one another. There is no better way to put someone who you’ve met a handful of times on a pedestal. It’s isolating, manipulative, and (provided that we’re not drunk, heart broken, or “feeling sad…”), there’s no better way to isolate ourselves in a facade of happiness and good memories.

So Facebook, I’m loosening the shackles you’ve padlocked around my self worth. Once a day for no more than 15 minutes a day. Take it off your phone and join me. In two weeks (on September 5th) I will be reporting back.