Time flies...

...when you're not on Facebook!

I can't believe I've been Facebook-free for one month. I really thought I would miss it more than I did. Actually, I'm kind of appalled at how much I DIDN'T miss it. When I clicked that "deactivate" button on July 6th, my quickening pulse and sweaty palms were clear indicators that I had made the right decision. I was really quite disgusted with myself. Afterwards, I lost track of how many times my thumb instinctively flew to that blue "F" icon on on my phone. At least I removed the button from the favorites toolbar on my browser, otherwise I'm sure my mouse cursor would have floated up to click that too. In fact, it probably did. Gross.

It's also highly intriguing to me that three separate friends (that I know of... there may be more) also parted ways with Facebook in the last four weeks, all for various reasons, but all of which stemmed from bad experiences... account hacking, Facebook-sponsored spam-bots, drama-inducing posts. It was kind of nice knowing I wasn't the only fed-up Facebooker.

I must say, I really enjoyed using other forms of communication over the last month, which included Twitter, LinkedIn, email, text, and talking. I also found that I took more time to read -- that is, read things other than people's status updates or political rants or Words With Friends scores. Although I did get some of that from Twitter. But the beauty of Twitter is that in a matter of seconds, comments roll off the screen, never to be thought of again. Quite unlike FB's "Top Stories" that would stare back at me. All. Day. Long.

It was a nice experiment, and a much needed rehab from Crackbook. Yet, in spite of my new-found freedom, I will likely reactivate my account anyway.

I know, I know.

I certainly have no intention to revert to the addict I once was, and I plan to keep that bookmark removed from my favorites. Maybe I'll become one of those people who has an active  Facebook account but "is never on."

We're about to find out.