Unengaged

You'd think removing Facebook from my life wouldn't have that much of an impact. I mean, its not like I was *always* on it. I DO have a life. I'm involved in school, volunteering, work, social stuff and of course classes and homework.

Yet I've found that without it I've become significantly more lonely. Not being on it really has made me feel disconnected. I couldn't understand why, I mean, I really do have friends and places to go. I thought, *Do I really need to have EVERY last hour of my day feeling as though I'm connected to other people?* I mean, I was alive before Facebook. I even went through the vast majority of high school without it. Facebook, in the grand scheme of my life, has been a relatively recent thing. And yet, without it, now life feels somewhat emptier.

And I think I've JUST figured it out.

As I was lecturing myself in my head about how I shouldn't feel the need to be connected to other people at all times, I realized that I really do spend a lot of time entirely quiet and self-contained, not relating to anyone at all. For example, I've been up 4 hours now and as far as social interactions go, I've had less than 20 minutes of conversation in the total course of that 4 hours. And this morning has been an exceptionally social morning too because of various circumstances. But I've still spent most of that time not engaged with anyone at all. And though I had class for 50 minutes of it, listening to a professor who doesn't know me from a hole in the wall hardly counts as time engaged in a real personal, social interaction.

Even when I'm volunteering, only about 1/3 of that time is actually spent engaged with someone else. Usually I'm just getting people coffee or juice. Or when I work, even if I'm working with someone else, most of the time we work there is silence as we both concentrate on our separate tasks.

There's lots of polite banter throughout all of my days, "thank yous," "sorrys" and "excuse me's" with various people I usually don't even make eye contact with. This also hardly counts as quality personal interactions.

Even when I'm at home with my roommate, even though we like each other and everything, most of the time we are at home we are either reading or on our computers. We have good conversations, but certainly not every day.

It makes me wonder, on a typical day, just how much time do I actually spend engaged with other people? I'm pretty sure the answer would be less than 10% most of the time. :S

NO WONDER I feel alone so often! I AM alone so often!

I'm pretty sure my life was not always this isolated. I think its very much the university lifestyle of lots of reading/assignments and impersonal, uninteractive lectures compounded with everyone's high internet use and our generally isolationistic society. Ontario is especially notorious for its cold and impersonal nature.

I know solitude is good and all, but I think maybe I've gone over board, and I don't think I'm the only one.

This weekend, I'm going to measure the amount of time I actually spend talking to people.