Hitting “Delete”

“Either he deleted his Facebook page or he’s blocked me,” said my husband first thing this morning.

“That’s ridiculous,” I said. “Why would he do either?”

Our 20-year-old son Jake is a computer guru, and has been for a very long time. He makes his living doing “computer things.” I open my Facebook page and search his name. I find it and click on it.

Black boxes and emptiness.

I pick up the phone and call him immediately.

“Hey, Mum,” he mumbles. Clearly I have woken him, but I am delighted to hear his voice.

“You okay?” I ask.

“Yeah, just a bit sleepy,” he says.

“Sorry to wake you,” I say, “but we saw that you weren’t on Facebook anymore. How come?”

“Too stressful,” he responds simply.

“Good for you,” I tell him. “If I weren’t such a famous public figure, I might do the same.” He laughs, and so do I. I laugh because I know that as soon as I write about this, I’ll post it to my blog and then link it to my Facebook page. And then I’ll wait for people to give me feedback.

I’m a feedback addict.

I understand what he means about the stress, though, and my decision to remove “Words with Friends” from my new iPhone this year seriously helped me breathe a little easier. I loved the challenge, but I always had about five games going, and although I justified playing because it was “words,” when I really looked at those hours of mental maneuvering of letters to make meaningless “points,” I see that they were hours that could have been better spent.

We live in a world that caters to people like me, the extroverts of the world, the “Look at MEs” of the world, the people who need attention and that burst of excitement that comes when we open our Facebook and see those red notification bubbles.

But I understand the stress that comes with addiction, and wonder now what I’m going to do about it. I can justify all of my status updates as necessary for me to stay connected with and to entertain my friends and family…it’s what extroverts do.

I’ll be waiting for your feedback.