I checked to see if blogging about giving up following Yahoo Groups for Lent registered in any search engines. It is not an exhaustive study, but it appears that many people gave up Facebook this year:
Dad Wonders If He Can Last All of Lent Without Facebook
How to give up Facebook for Lent and keep your friends
Although I stayed subscribed to two Freecycle groups, I kept the messages on the web site and didn’t go there. I did the same with the Celt’s Vintage Crochet site, figured that requiring a moderator to participate by having to add me back after Holy Week was unfair.
The result was spending less time on the computer which did allow for other projects, including reducing the wool yarn stash by knitting it up.
With one Yahoo! group in particular there seemed to have been a change in what was formerly a supportive atmosphere. I had a lot invested personally. The turning point was when a member jumped all over another participant who innocently posted an urban myth, one for which there was an element of truth. I really felt sorry for the original poster, becoming the victim of “gotcha” on top of living with a chronic debilitating medical condition was just not fair. (I felt that incident, along with several others, actually crossed over the line into bullying.) Friendly discussion and trying to be helpful by providing more information was the former norm. Sigh…
