40 day abstinence

This was a great article. I guess I will try:

No Facebook
No Yelp
No Alcohol

You can stop laughing.
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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123509424821028985.html

Status: Dad Wonders If He Can Last All of Lent Without Facebook
By STEPHANIE SIMON

They're a little too old to give up potato chips, Guitar Hero or Red Bull for Lent.

But as Christian parents ponder an appropriate sacrifice, they find themselves mulling a choice they'd have once seen as preposterous: A Facebook fast -- not for their teens but for themselves.

Lenten sacrifices are meant to honor and in a small way reenact the 40 days Jesus is said to have wandered the wilderness, fasting and resisting temptation. Abstaining from Facebook for the 40 days of Lent was the rage among college students last year. This Lenten season -- which starts next week on Ash Wednesday -- the cause has been taken up by a surprising number of adults. The digital sacrifice won't be easy, they say, but it may help them reclaim their analog lives.
[Status: Dad Wonders If He Can Last All of Lent Without Facebook]

"If I give up clams, which I hate, I'm not really doing anything," says Kevin Shine, a 39-year-old electrical contractor from Philadelphia. But abstain from posting "status updates" on his every move? That's a worthy struggle. "It's my candy," he explains, noting that he logs on as much as 20 times a day. "That's pathological."

Mr. Shine sounds a bit bewildered as he says this, as though he can't quite believe he's in this fix. Social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace are far more popular among teens and college students. Nearly half of all 18-to-24 year olds visit such sites at least daily, compared to just 13% of Internet users overall, according to the Pew Research Center.

But a significant population of adults has also been hooked. They start by looking up old friends or flames. They scroll through co-workers' online photo albums. They post random tidbits about their days. Mr. Shine recently found himself telling all 157 of his online "friends" about the vomit a stray dog left on his porch.

Lisandrea Wentland, who does research for a Christian TV network, plays Scrabble and trades amusing YouTube videos on Facebook. Every time she logs on, she says, "it's like going to the best party in the world."

Ms. Wentland, who is 38, recently got in touch with a guy she had last seen three decades ago when, at the age of nine, they acted in a school play together. Within the comfy confines of Facebook's blue-and-white pages, he confided he'd once had a crush on her.

That was a total rush -- until Ms. Wentland paused to ponder the point of such ephemeral connections. They were fun, yes, but they took up more time than she cared to calculate. It had been ages since she'd sat on the floor and played trains with her six-year-old son or baked cookies with her three-year-old daughter.

"I have a real life here, with children, a husband and a job. They need my attention and energy," Ms. Wentland says.

A few months ago, she tried to limit herself to online networking once a week. Facebook Friday, she called it. "I don't think it lasted a week," Ms. Wentland says. "I just couldn't do it."

She's hopeful that putting her renunciation of Facebook in the spiritual context of Lent will help. She plans to use some of the time she would have spent online in prayerful reflection. She's also joined an online quitting-Facebook-for-Lent support group. (Since the group is hosted on Facebook, none of the members -- in theory, at least -- will be logging on to comfort one another during their days of trial.)

College students who have abstained from Facebook for Lent in recent years say it was brutal, but valuable. Whitley Leiss, now a junior at Texas Christian University, slipped up only once, on her birthday, when she was desperate to see the well-wishes posted for her. She asked a roommate to log into her account and read them aloud while she averted her eyes from the screen. When Lent ended, she logged on to find dozens of messages waiting and strangely little desire to answer them.

"I saw all that I had missed," Ms. Leiss said. "And I realized I hadn't missed anything." She also learned, she says, who her true friends were -- those who would take the radically retro step of calling or emailing to stay in touch.

Bruce Hunt, a 53-year-old massage therapist, is eager to see what lessons he'll take from his Facebook fast. He never expected to be drawn into the site. He joined only to keep tabs on his teenage daughter. But now he eagerly logs in each evening -- to the point, he says, that his wife has started to grumble that it's eating up too much of his time.

Mr. Hunt asked his daughter to join him in quitting Facebook for Lent. She refused, rather vehemently. "If she were allowed to cuss, she would have," he said. So he's going it alone. And, unsure of his willpower, already preparing excuses in case he slips.

"It's not like when I took a solemn vow to my wife," he says. "It's just Facebook, for goodness sakes. I'm not wearing a ring."

Mr. Shine, the Philadelphia electrician, fears he may start making that type of excuse himself a few days in. So he's set up a system that he hopes will keep him on the straight and narrow. He has vowed to drop to the floor and sweat out 10 push-ups every time he even thinks of Facebook.

Come Easter, he figures, he'll be looking pretty buff.