Are you on Facebook? How long have you been a user? How many times a day do you use it? I sounds like I’m asking questions about a drug, or maybe as a part of an addiction support group. I wouldn’t consider myself to be addicted to Facebook, but I know of others who are prime candidates for addicts.

There was a time in my life, not long after college, that I could have been considered addicted to Facebook. I spent a lot of time on Facebook back when it was all silly cat pictures, online games with your friends, and updates about every detail of life from pictures of your food to significant bathroom breaks.

When I started blogging, Facebook started to become a way for me to drive traffic to my blog more than an avenue for me to catch up on my friends’ daily endeavors. I joined Twitter around the same time so that I could follow a few people and spread the word about what I was writing even more.

I remember racing my wife to the 100 friend mark on Facebook. For the record, I think she won. Once I surpassed that number, I started to slow down in my personal posts to friends. Birthday wishes happened every once in a while and I started losing track of what was going on in my friends’ lives.

Now that I have passed the 1000 friend milestone, I am noticing that I read my timeline about twice a day and catch about 50 updates. I made sure to mark my family as “close friends” as to not miss what they post, but chances are that I am missing 90% of what my other friends are posting. Is that a bad thing? I don’t think so, especially since most of what I see on Facebook these days is Christian spam and political arguments.

Does “liking” a poorly made picture if Jesus really mean I believe in Him? Will God hear my prayers more if I like and share a post about a kid with cancer? Does talking down about the President or his opponents really make me want to vote for either of them? I think your baby is really cute, but I’m not going to like the picture or comment on it because I can’t handle the ten thousands updates from everyone else commenting after me. I do read your posts when they show up in my news feed, but I’m not going to comment about how we met or repost it as my status. Most of what I see on Facebook has become just like the spam emails that I’ve always deleted without reading. You don’t have to tag me in a picture of your child just because you want me to see it.

I used to wish that people would post more meaningful things on Facebook. Many people do, but it’s hard to sift through everything else to find the deeper posts. We’ve gone from superficial posts to spam and political nonsense. How do you get sift through the junk that continues to pile up on Facebook? Do you dive in like the American Pickers, or do you just scan the surface for glimpses of light in the darkness?

What is Facebook really for anymore? Go ahead and share your political and religious thoughts. Share the funny things you find on the web and the endless pictures of your kids. Ask questions, play games, add more friends, and check into the places you visit.

Do what you will with Facebook, but can I encourage you to do one thing? Take a break for a day and call one of your friends. Go meet them for coffee or lunch. Talk to them in real life about their family or job. Reconnect with a friends that you’ve only seen on Facebook over the past year or longer.

Facebook is for keeping everyone an arm’s length away. Step away from your screen, put down your phone, and give someone a hug. You can’t expect to keep real friends through digital contact alone.