Facebook is wonderful...Facebook is evil

I've been conflicted of late about my relationship with/relationships via facebook.

Wonderful
On the one hand, facebook is wonderful! I have reconnected with long-lost friends, kept up with those wide and far, and am able to keep family up-to-date like no other tool has allowed. Family, especially grandparents, get almost daily photo and video of the kids. I've been part of some great debates with family and friends. On a good day I can share my happiness. On a bad day I have garnered great support.

Last month I posted a comment of how I had returned to a vegan diet (for the record: I'm flexi-vegan i.e. vegan until some good meat dish lures me out of retirement for a few meals), and this was met by a wonderfully thoughtful and interesting response from a woman I'd met via my husband (our husbands are long time friends). She sent me a message of her own thoughts on food philosophy and her successes with changing diets as well as providing hearty encouragement (thanks Cathy)! Also as a result of this one post, a very thoughtful co-worker lent me some fab cookbooks (Liza, I PROMISE they will come back to you so so soon! Making mushroom fajitas tonight!). So...facebook is a great social networking tool that can be a positive addition to some already great relationships in one's life. As a bonus, my Scrabble/Wordscraper skills have improved - I'll take my turn after work Mehala!


Evil
On the other hand, facebook is an evil time-consuming vacuum to whom many hours have been wasted away playing supposedly social games (how "social" can sorority life be if most of your sisters are strangers and you can attack and slap people?), endless quizzes (do I really need to know that much about the 80s?) and all kinds of gift engines flying around (sorry...no more sweets for me please). I adore the people with whom I play these games, but I feel like I need to get off this crazy ride! It's difficult enough getting over "mommy brain" as my son just reached 9-months old, but with ever less time available to get things done, the high quality activities in life seem to get missed...reading, writing, sleeping.

Therefore, I am committing anew to wean off the less value-added aspects of facebook (I'll miss all my fellow farmers!) and keep active with the truly great things Facebook has to offer!

'til another time,
Danielle