Many things have changed in my life over the past month, one of them being that I have given up facebook. I thought this would be a very difficult change for me to achieve, but it’s actually been a lot easier than I expected. So here are some things I’ve seen improve in my life through not having facebook.

First, I’ve become a lot more intentional at keeping up with my real friends. I had something like 900 “friends” on facebook, of those 900 friends, I actually regularly stay in touch with about 40 of them (including family and people who live very close to me). Not having facebook has forced me to get better at maintaining the relationships with those that I truly care about, and I am so grateful for things like texting that allow me to stay in touch with them very quickly.

Secondly, I’ve found myself getting a lot more creative. I’ve had to come up with new things to do to replace the down time I had where I would just sit and check facebook. It’s been very refreshing to not always wonder what’s being said, or who mentioned me in a comment or who has the newest pictures up. Tied in to this, I’ve been reading quite a bit more. There are so many resources out there that I’ve been trying to delve into that I have finally found the time to do.

Third, and most importantly in my mind, I find myself being much more present when I spend time with people. I don’t have facebook to fall back on if things get boring or there is a lull in the conversation, I need to force myself to be all there and focus on the person I’m spending time with.

So for you: do you find facebook taking over your life? How have you found ways that you can maintain real significant relationships with people apart from facebook? Do you think giving up facebook is a good thing to do?