Social Media: Virtue or Vice? Pinterest Tops the 2012 Lenten Index

You can take our tweets. But do not -- do not -- take our pins.

Lent is upon us. For the next 39 days, Christians (and non-Christians who find appeal in the idea of strategic self-denial) will give up something they love -- or at least something they tend to over-indulge in -- in the name both of sacrifice itself and of self-and-social-improvement.

Traditional sacrifices include: meat, sugar, coffee, booze, TV-watching, snacking, gossiping, lying, procrastinating, complaining, and complaining about procrastinating. And while, recently, Lenten forfeitures have come to include additions to, rather than subtractions from, people's daily routines -- "I'll exercise more," "I'll eat more vegetables," "I'll make a point of paying someone a compliment every day" -- for the most part, the sacrifices made during the 40 days before Easter rely on the classic dialectic between addiction and destruction. You give something up both because you love it ... and because you know it's bad for you.

So it's interesting that the list of Lenten sacrifices has recently expanded to include another category: social media. People, taking the digital sabbath concept to a days-long level, are giving up Facebook. They're giving up Twitter and Tumblr and Foursquare. And if the love it/leave it dichotomy holds true, their self-imposed abstinence from those platforms indicates not only sacrifice, but also the general sense that the services being sacrificed are, on some level, destructive. Their popularity as sacrifices suggests, actually, the negative feelings people have about social media services. 

Lenten abstinence, in other words, can offer an unscientific-but-still-revealing insight into how people are feeling about social media. A Big Mac Index for our feelings about Facebook.

So how are our current popular services stacking up? I did a search of tweets posted over the past day; and, within that day, there have been tons of references to giving up Facebook.

Giving up rice, McDonald's, Facebook and KFC for lent.

-- Belieberauhl.(@SexifiedBiebs) February 23, 2012

Giving Up Facebook For Lent.. So I Will Be Back On Twitter Alot More!

-- Syanna Reyes (@SyannaaaReyesss) February 23, 2012

Giving up Facebook for lent! :X Let's see how this goes....

-- Laura Janis (@EL_VEE_JAY) February 23, 2012

I'm giving up swearing, facebook, and sarcasm #finaldecision

-- Ngan Nguyen(@ngannerz) February 23, 2012

In addition to giving up facebook..I'm gonna try and give up saying 'sorry' never realized just how much I say it..

-- Lindsay Nitishin (@lindsayyy_loo) February 23, 2012

Making sure you have a perfect profile pic before giving up Facebook for lent. #TSM

-- Total Sorority Move (@totalsratmove) February 23, 2012

There are fewer, but still substantial, references to giving up Twitter.

For lent I'm giving up Twitter & Facebook, so later all see ya in 40 days!

-- Shemeka Levine (@ShemekaLevine) February 23, 2012

Pope to tweet message a day for 40 days of #Lent -lat.ms/AwZ7Yj via @romeneskoToo bad I'm giving up Twitter for #lent

-- david carr (@carr2n) February 23, 2012

Starting tmrw I'm giving up twitter and lying for lent #nojoke

-- Loading... (@_oddmentality) February 22, 2012

I know sooooooo many people giving up twitter for lent... Yea, I'm not about that life. lol

-- †hat boy. (@nicktheweirdo) February 22, 2012

Foursquare got a few sacrificial shout-outs, as well.

Giving up @foursquare for Lent. I'll miss my mayorships, but need a break from life feeling like a location-based game. #socialmedia

-- ashley lee (@ashleyllee) February 23, 2012

Giving up #foursquare, coffee and rice for #lent

-- glenn fajota (@nowthatsfresh) February 22, 2012

@DragonNash @ameliacfarmer Amelia is giving up foursquare for lent Nash. can you believe it?! she needs support.

-- Catherine Farmer (@cathfarm) February 22, 2012

And so did Tumblr.

Shawty said she is giving up Tumblr for lent#cray

-- Justin Delio (@WhatTheDelio) February 23, 2012

Im giving up tumblr for lent

-- Carolyne Marie ✌(@Heartsparx) February 23, 2012

Giving up Tumblr for lent..This is going to be hard

-- Eve Reeves (@Eves_By_U) February 23, 2012

But! Take a look at the results for Pinterest. Some people are, indeed, giving up the service:

For Lent this year I'm giving up: liver, Pinterest, cat-petting, and Lifetime Movie Network. Call me the "Religious Self-Discipline Ninja."

-- Kevin Childs (@rockconway) February 22, 2012

Better late than never, but I am giving up all forms of social media for Lent (Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Pinterest).

-- Ashleigh Finley (@ashfinle) February 23, 2012

But the general consensus seems to be that Pinterest is too valuable to give up, even for six weeks:

Someone said they were giving up Pinterest for Lent!!!!! I'm hyperventilating just thinking about that. #nojoke

-- Belle Living (@BelleLiving) February 21, 2012

What am I giving up for #Lent? Not Pinterest.

-- Bridget Marie Forney (@BridgetForney) February 22, 2012

Giving up shopping and sweets for Lent. So, really, I should be giving up @Pinterest.

-- Hilary S. Cocalis (@hilary_SC) February 22, 2012

Giving up pinterest for Lent? Yeah, didn't think so! #pinning yfrog.com/esfe9nyj

-- Angela Smith (@cinemagenius) February 22, 2012

So people can happily spend 40 days deprived of TV and dessert and (yes, even!) coffee, and of Tumblrs and tweets and Facebook's photos and messages. Pins, on the other hand? That's a sacrifice most aren't willing -- or able -- to make.

Image: Shutterstock/Pan Xunbin.