The ubiquity of Facebook is an undeniable, nearly unavoidable reality. Remembering a time before Facebook – or the birth of social networking perhaps – begins to mimic memories of a time before the Internet. That is to say, distant, alien and obtuse. Can we really not imagine a time before “Poking”? Or incessant status updates? Or the repetitive troll of the news feed in search of digestible tidbits of info, aimed at dislodging the boredom our daily lives? Web designer Ivan Cash thinks that we can and we should take a time-out. And we can, and we should do it now.

Inspired by Pico Iyer’s New York Times essay The Joy of Quiet, Cash created an online campaign encouraging Facebook users to take a break. A day, a week, a month – doesn’t matter. His campaign, aptly named Facebook Sabbatical, squarely aims to transfer those logged hours on Facebook, (trust us, those babies add up), to spending time running or reading or enjoying your family or doing something, literally ANYTHING, other than staring at your Facebook wall, awaiting ‘likes’ for your latest witty comment on current economic policy change within your respective government.

Campaigns to leave Facebook wholesale have popped up over the years, especially as opposition rose to Facebook’s wavering and albeit dubious privacy policies. But those efforts always seemed rash and knee-jerk in their swiftness. Maybe people aren’t ready to flat out quit. Facebook Sabbatical is good middle ground.


If this campaign/New Year’s Resolution inspires introspection into the collective value of social networking and online connectivity as a whole, while simultaneously inspiring more offline social networking (i.e. going out and meeting actual people, face-to-face), we’re all for it.

And don’t worry; Facebook will be here when you get back.

We hear it’s kind of popular.


Links to consider:

http://facebooksabbatical.com/

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/01/opinion/sunday/the-joy-of-...