Are you "overcommenting" or "oversharing" on Facebook?

Yeah. If Sarah Palin makes up new words, so can I.

After watching movies like Catfish and having deep reservations on how many information some people share on the wonderful place called Facebook, I started what I thought it would be impossible: my own Facebook detox. Then I read a news post about some guy called Jeffrey Cole; who bluntly stated that Facebook will last almost five years and then it will be no more. Well, apart from the fact that it has been reported that Cole was the one that said the same thing about MySpace - when no one even thought of uttering such a line - it got me thinking that I was in the right frame of mind.

I am starting to quit Facebook.

Yup, like any regular addict, I started my own 12 step program to free myself from the monster called social network and start living again in a sans-over-sharing world. Like cigarettes, alcohol and/or even hard core drugs, this requires a step by step process... and I decided I am taking back my life, one step at a time.

Why did I start thinking this way?

I started noticing weird behaviors from people I know. There are some who have gone on vacation and reported almost daily what have they been doing. Disturbing. There are some who insist on sharing a daily picture of what they are doing. Weird. Then, I noticed the worst: I knew all this shit, because I saw it every single day. Not only are the people I care about going socialnetworky-apeshit... I was too.

This shit has got to stop.

Now I am dead set on quitting or limiting my time on this hell-addictive platform. I want my life back and also, I want my privacy back. And trust me, you should think about this too. Life is very cool when not ALL the people you know have every single detail of your mundane life.

So this newly found joy of limiting my Facebook "usage" came first from the greatest Jimmy Kimmel show. You see, last week he decided to do something called "National UnFriend Day". I found this one of the greatest ideas I've heard in a long time: you delete people who are not really your friends but you've added them to your friends list because of obligations. Period.

Jimmy said it best that night before it started: true friends are few. So why the fuck do we want for people who hardly know us to see pictures of our families and other friends? This is totally true, dammit! So even before Jimmy's gimmick started I already started deleting people. Trust me, it felt FUCKING AWESOME. I deleted almost 40 people that night. Felt like crack cocaine would feel. Getting rid of people who really mean nothing to me was awesome. I know I have some people left that I have to delete, but this is so fun I am actually taking my time and doing rounds. Deleting people and making them go back to where they came from - something called "The Past" - is something truly enjoyable.

But that doesn't mean that I see people which I love dearly that are really, really freaking me out. So this post is for them, I guess. For the Facebook addicts that I love. Here we go.

I've decided to write down what I think to be the warning signs that you need to log off a little bit more often and start enjoying your life once again, without the need for everybody else to know. Feel free to add as many as you want to.

1) You are suddenly friends of people you haven't even talked to that much in real life.
This is very simple. Have you talked with that person more than 20 minutes in your life? Did you work with that person for more than 6 months? Then you are not a friend. Stop yapping about things you don't know. You look odd doing it.

2) You need to take a picture every ten minutes of every idiotic thing you are watching/eating/listening/reading.
We all eat. We all go to the movies. We all have weird moments. Take the time to enjoy them, rather than the need for me to see it.

3) You need to update me every 15 minutes on what you are doing/feeling/thinking.
I am not bullshitting you, I know people who change their status every 10-15 minutes. I now wonder when they have time to eat/work/enjoy life. I even had to delete a friend from Twitter because all I got was his minute by minute tweets - and since I use Twitter like a news feed for cool stuff/work related shit, it became so much to bear I had to even block him. Poor idiot.

4) You feel the need to comment on every single item that anyone posts - family, friend or even worse, someone you hardly know.
I have a question for you: have you ever at any time worked for ESPN or HBO Sports, for example? Then stop it with the hard core commenting. Really. It's annoying and you look weird while doing it - either too friendly or just with way too much time on your hands. Go have a drink and enjoy the little photo that someone took of their dog - and enjoy it by yourself.

5) You are not allowed to go on vacation ever again if you've written at your profile at any time during your stay there. Period.
Vacations are supposed to be the time where you disconnect yourself from everything. Work - AND FRIENDS AND FAMILY. Basically you are wasting your time if you don't truly go away. The only exception to the rule is if you write something to the effect of "I am alive" or "I made it ok", meaning that you want people to know - the people that do count - that you are ok. Fuck that. If you are ok just write a damn email to the people that matter. So back to the basic rule, you have to disconnect completely or you're done. No more vacations for you.

So there you go, I even managed to do a "Five Things" list! How cool is that? Honestly people, there is a life beyond social networks. What do you think?

Much love from a recovering Facebook user, Me.