What I Learned From Deactivating Facebook for 83 days

That it is not about the social network, it is about me.

I had just one thing in my mind when I took a break - "focus on studying".
I thought facebook was the reason why I could not focus on textbooks, that I would automatically start doing better when I stop using facebook.

And boy, was I not wrong?

I started getting distracted by gmail!

I started to read more of the email subscriptions I have, I started visiting more and more online magazines, reading through them, article after article.

It only felt counterproductive.

What was missing?
Having eliminated what seemed to be the greatest distraction, I was still distracted, and I started wondering why. I decided to observe myself. And the results? Not surprising at all.

I simply could not read more than a paragraph of my textbook without getting distracted. Either I would start thinking about something in the textbook. Or I would start thinking about my college. Or I would get a great new idea which will change the way world works. Or I desperately want to visit some random website on the internet.

I simply could not read.

But why?
I don't know.

I know only one thing. That there is something wrong with my will. I have an obsessive disorder. I am addicted to distractions.

If all goes right, I will come out of this. I will curb that incessant urge to be in the know about everything. I will learn how to ignore some of the unread notifications. I will learn how to archive some emails without going through them. I will learn how to even check email only in two slots every day.

But I will still be spending hours to fix tiny errors on my blog template.

I know. I am crazy.