• by Erik Sass , Staff Writer @eriksass1, February 4, 2015

If any more proof was required of our complete subjugation by social media, this should settle it: apparently there’s an online movement afoot called “Facebook Free February,” which, as its name indicates, challenges people to abstain from using Facebook for an entire month (albeit the shortest of the year).

I’m not sure exactly where or when Facebook Free February started, but currently it seems to be more popular overseas, specifically in the UK, Ireland, and Australia. The idea apparently goes back at least as far as February 2012, so this will actually be the fourth Facebook Free February on record.

It’s an interesting concept because even if you don’t participate, it can prompt people to think about just how much they actually use Facebook, not to mention other social media. If you find yourself logging into Facebook over 50 times a day, how likely is it that you could actually stop “cold turkey” for 28 days in a row? Would you end the month having vivid hallucinations that bugs are crawling under your skin? Or would you find that you actually don’t miss it that much?

That said, it’s not clear how many people are actually participating in Facebook Free February. Looking at the usage stats from comScore, it would seem not many, since the numbers of global and U.S. users have increased through every February since the movement began.

More interesting, and possibly alarming for Facebook, is the fact that more teens appear to be leaving the social network for competitors, including Instagram (owned by Facebook) and Twitter. According to the latest “Taking Stock with Teens” survey from Piper Jaffray, conducted in September 2014, 76% of teens said they use Instagram and 59% said they use Twitter, versus just 45% for Facebook.