Lights Out

Sometime yesterday, I saw a post in my Facebook feed featuring a study about brains and politics.

My take from the article was this: if you think and vote a certain way, you have a good brain. If you’re one of the other guys then…well…you are pretty much SOL. 

I thought to myself “Well, that’s it.”

Lucky for me the calendar has turned to Ash Wednesday today. I’ve been thinking for a while that I wanted to take a break from Facebook for a while. The timing couldn’t be better. Give it up for Lent.

So, this programming note for all my friends (and readers of Coach Jeff’s Blog). I will be taking an approximately six-week break from Facebook. Lisa has promised to keep me updated on any essential stuff. I’ll just have to miss everything else.

I’m taking this self-imposed break for three main reasons:

1. I want to do an experiment.
   
2. I’ll put aside this luxury in conjunction with Lent.
   
3. I’m tired of the political rancor.

As I’ve mentioned before, I try to keep this place free of politics. I won’t break that pledge now. You may know where I stand. That’s good enough.

In a similar fashion, I used to enjoy how Facebook was a light, happy place to engage in social media. I’ve reconnected with many friends via this platform. I liked connecting with new people and learning interesting facts.

Also, I’ve used it as a way to spread news (indeed it is a great way to amplify Coach Jeff’s Blog).

Increasingly, however, I’ve noticed people from both political extremes (one more than the other, though) posting more and more fiery rhetoric. Question: Are they engaging in their constitutional right to free speech or do they really think their posts are going to sway me or any of the other 1.19 billion Facebook users with their clever banter.

If it is the former, then I’m sure they won’t object to my constitutional right to disengage; if it is the latter, perhaps they’re really shooting for that group of the coveted ‘undecideds’ that seem to sway most elections.

Either way, they won’t miss me.

I’m also going to make sure those Facebook users who access the blog won’t miss a single edition of Coach Jeff. I’m giving myself the 5 second exemption each night to log on long enough to paste the day’s link to Coach Jeff’s Blog. I’ll log on. Paste. And then log off.

For six weeks, it’ll be Lights Out.

Of course, those of you who access the blog via tumblr, Bloglovin’, Twitter or email subscription won’t be affected by my silent protest in the least. And, I am going to make every effort to make sure the Facebook folks continue to receive the Monday-Thursday posts as well.

Meanwhile, I won’t:

• Be playing any games
  
• Be re-posting any clever memes
  
• Be responding to any of those ads that just seem to be more and more prevalent (and seem to correspond to my non FB activities online).

I won’t be posting any of my famous stump speeches either. At the end of the day, I don’t think any of my clever prose would sway many votes anyway.

At the end of Lent, maybe I’ll find I didn’t need to spend so much time on Facebook in the first place. Or at the very least, I’ll have been able to hit the re-set button.

Either way, I’m looking forward to the break…which starts…right now.

JG

Originally posted 2/18/2015