Facebook detox-ing

I am in the middle of a Facebook detox experiment. About two weeks ago I stopped checking my facebook page. I stopped posting status. I stopped taking silly little quizzes.

I was addicted to it. I was neurotically checking the page several times a day to see if there were any updates, messages, comments or whatever. Even worse, two weeks after my cold turkey cleansing, I still want to check. I come to the computer and feel a compulsion to type in the URL... and when I don't, the experience feels so empty. Its like there is nothing to do on the computer. It felt as if I can't have my Facebook fix, then what the blazes is technology for in the first place?

Isn't that the stupid thing ever? I mean, here is a machine capable of so many things, and yet some wacked out obsessive addictive behavior of mine has reduced it to lobbing back and forth blibbets of information 1000 characters at a time.

I don't know if this is a stable experiment. Facebook has become a kind of communication central - supplanting emails and phone calls. People rely on its noteboard-like experience to casually drop off bits of information for their circle of friends, family and acquaintance. It it is a proxy for email - obscuring one's actual email address (kind of a nice feature, really)... but that basically necessitates visiting the site to reply (unless, of course, we all go back to email again).

I have filled more of my time with gardening, painting and writing. I managed to get out two full chapters on my sequel to Millicent Marbleroller tonight. I also started another book two days ago - this one a how-to, as supposedly those are easier to sell. Maybe that's the answer to the outcome of going dry on Facebook? Happy, fulfilling, Luddite pasttimes?