Giving Up Facebook and Twitter for Lent

Well saying that I am giving up Facebook and Twitter for Lent is easier than actually doing it.  During the first two days there were multiple times where I would look at my iPhone or iPad or open a browser window on my Mac and would go to Facebook and then realize that I was not supposed to be there.  I immediately closed it again so that I was not actually looking at updates but I want to avoid even that for now.  I went back in on my browser one more time and logged out of Facebook so that even if I go to Facebook I am logged out and won't see anything for now.  I also deleted the apps off of my idevices so that I am not tempted there.  It is giving me more time to focus on other things and my life and overall I think this will be a good experience.  I do enjoy interacting with people on Facebook but I also know that there are times when I spend too much time on Facebook.

Start of Lent 2014

Today is the start of Lent and I have decided to make some changes for Lent that will get me to spend more time offline and rely less on technology.  I am a big fan of Technology and I spend more time than I should checking things like Facebook and Twitter.  I have decided to give up Facebook and Twitter for Lent.  This won't be any easy thing for me to do.  I do enjoy interacting with friends on Facebook but think that going without it for this time will help me focus on other things.  Twitter is also something that i will miss.  I follow quite a few people for announcements on programs that I use and find some interesting things there.

Lent is not all about giving things up though.  I am also using the time to focus more on how I treat people and and what kind of choices that I make in my life.  I am like everyone else in that I am not perfect.  I try to be a good person and make good choices but there are some times that I do or say things that I am not really proud of and I want to do that less.

Connecting Blog and Facebook

I spent a little time this weekend trying to figure out how to connect my Blog and Facebook. I have had my Blog longer but I spend more time on Facebook as that is where many friends and games are. I didn't want to give up my Blog site though since there are still some people that I want to be able to see some things that I post that don't have or want Facebook accounts.

I started out by thinking that maybe I could setup an RSS feed here to import my Facebook status and that would keep this site more up to date. That ended up not being an option since Facebook has made if very difficult to export your status outside of Facebook.

I did some research and found that Twitter would allow me to do some of what I wanted. I could post short updates on Twitter and those updates would be propagated to Facebook automatically. I installed the Twitter module for Drupal here and now those Twitter updates get posted to a block on my website as well. This also works well since I have this setup so that when I post a blog entry here, a link to that blog gets sent to both Twitter and Facebook. So far this looks like it will workout well.

One of the driving forces for me to get this in place now is that the San Diego 3 Day is only 39 Days away. I like being able to post pictures and short updates during the 3 Day so that those that donated to my walk can see how I am doing throughout the weekend.

I think this is going to work out just fine. Between Twitter for Status Messages and Flickr for Pictures, I am all set.