Lent is the time of year when lots of us decide to give something up for almost 6 weeks. As a Christian I always give up something each year for this period - last year it was cheese and chocolate, the year before was meat (that was a tough one!) and this year it's Facebook.

I thought I would find it really difficult. I wouldn’t say I’m a Facebook addict but I normally go on it every other day just to check if I have any notifications, friend requests, or to just have a look on my news feed at what everyone is getting up to.

I changed my password to stop the temptation of popping on there after a week or so, I updated my status to “giving up Facebook for lent so, text me if you need me!” and then I logged out at 23:59 Tuesday 21st February.

It’s been a little over two weeks and... I’m doing just fine! I’ve actually started to enjoy things a lot more.

I’m finding myself having a lot more time on my hands to get college work done, research into courses and universities, and revision for my May exams. It’s not until now that I’ve realised how much time I spent on Facebook. It may have just been a quick look on my iPod when I got home from college, or an hour on the laptop before bed, but even so...that time really was wasted!

December 2011 it was recorded that 845 million people around the world use Facebook. That’s crazy. It’s mind blowing...but not in a positive way. How is it that our world has become so obsessed by this social networking site? Out of Twitter, Myspace, Bebo, Badoo, everyone knows somebody that has an account on one or two of them, but everybody seems to have Facebook. What is it about the site that makes everybody want to be on it? There are nine year olds with Facebook, and there are ninety year olds with Facebook. The site seems to have taken over all of us!

It’s sad that it has taken me this long to realise how wrapped up we are in the 'Facebook world.' We are so bothered about what everyone thinks of our new profile picture, whether anyone has liked our status update, and if someone will comment on our relationship change to single. Why? Why do we care so much about how everyone else sees us?

It really hit me when I met somebody new at college yesterday in the canteen, he asked me what subjects I was doing, how I was enjoying college, then the next thing he said was “can I add you on Facebook?” I explained how I had given it up for lent, but I was thinking to myself - has it really come down to that - you meet somebody once and the obvious thing to do is have them as a ‘friend’ on Facebook? Really?

Should popularity be defined by the number of comments on your profile picture? Should it be defined by a friends list of more than a thousand people? Should it be defined by getting fifty likes on a status that says “time for bed, I’m shattered!”, I think not.

What I find to be really sad is that I can’t even deactivate my account and get rid of my Facebook profile, because I know that half the people I am 'friends with' on Facebook now wouldn’t stay in contact with me or communicate at all if it wasn’t for the ease of a wall post or Facebook inbox.

I may be completely overreacting, and maybe it’s just a site where we can all be friends and like each others posts! Let me know, I would love to hear what you think!