So last Thursday I logged on to facebook only to find that my entire feed was filled with arguments over the color of a fucking dress. For some reason this really upset me, to the point of actually deactivating my facebook account. I felt that this was a microcosm of how dumb society has become. Arguing over the color of a dress. I knew that people were wasting precious time looking at the dress, commenting on the dress, and reading counter arguments on the stupid dress.

This made me realize just how much time I myself waste on menial things like facebook. So for the last weekend I lived my life without it. Sure, the first day I felt like a junkie going through withdrawal. It was hard not picking up my phone at Starbucks and opening the app. But then I realized that I didn’t care. I didn’t care about what my friends were eating or what political occurrence had them outraged or what buzzfeed article they thought was funny. I really didn’t care. If I wanted to reach out to someone, I could call or text them.

The best part, was that as I sat at the starbucks, I spent more time looking up instead of looking down. It felt great.

The other thing I noticed throughout the weekend was that I was getting more work done. I didn’t have facebook to distract me and send me down the rabbit hole of ADD. I was reaching for my phone less and less and I was living in the moment. I played with my dog more and instead of seeing another picture of someone’s dog, I picked up a book and fell into the story of a young shepherd searching for his personal legend.

I think the most telling part about this whole experience is that no one has noticed that I’m gone. Or at least they haven’t said anything. It just proves that Facebook is nothing more that a superficial community where we all do our best to share and post things to feel validated by the number of likes our opinions get.

So I challenge you to step away, if just for a couple of days and instead of constantly going back to stare at a wall every hour, read a book, go outside, be active and enjoy something that has depth.