By Kate Shellnutt, correspondent

Instead of going without meat or sweets for Lent, some young Christians are suppressing their appetite for the Internet, forgoing social-networking sites like Facebook and MySpace and instant-messaging programs for 40 days and 40 nights.

For today's tech-savvy teens and college students, breaking their online habits is a way to make a sacrifice during a season when churches encourage prayer and fasting.

Christa Byker, a 21-year-old senior at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, added a line to her profile on Ash Wednesday warning her friends that she'd be disappearing from the digital world: "I am leaving Facebook to its own devices during the Lenten fast."

Since then, Byker, who is from Virginia Beach, has not returned to the site, where she used to spend at least a half-hour each day. More than half of Facebook's 64 million active users visit it daily, the site reports.

"I feel relieved," she said, after going just two days without browsing Facebook or receiving e-mail notifications. "I was spending way too much time on it. It was replacing my more meaningful social activities and schoolwork; it was replacing my more meaningful life."

Byker is not alone. Hundreds of users around the globe have joined groups like "40 days and 40 nights without Facebook," "Lent Commitment: 2008" and "I'm giving up Facebook Lent... see you in 40 days!"

Despite the trend, Facebook has not seen a drop in active accounts during Lent, said Malorie Lucich, a spokeswoman for the site.

Angela Hamrick, youth minister at Church of the Holy Family in Virginia Beach, meets weekly with about 50 Catholic teenagers from the congregation.

"During Lent, you hear them asking each other, 'Oh, what are you doing? What are you giving up?' And it's not to show off; it's just part of the culture," Hamrick said.

This year, some of Hamrick's friends and members of the youth group announced they were taking a 40-day hiatus from instant messenger or Facebook in the name of Lent.

"I've seen notices online where people say, 'I'm giving this up, here's my phone number, here's how you get in touch with me,'" Hamrick said. Some have even created support groups for themselves on the Facebook site.

Blythe Westendorf, 18, decided to go without instant messenger until Easter. A freshman at Elon University in Elon, N.C., she used the program to talk with her friends at other schools and her parents in Virginia Beach.

"I figured it would be good for me to keep in touch with my family and friends in much more personal ways," she said.

"This experience is definitely going to be really difficult for me," said Westendorf, who used to remain constantly signed on to AOL instant- messenger.

Lenten sacrifices are more about personal conversion than strict denial, according to Geri Jones, minister for the Catholic Campus Ministry at Old Dominion University in Norfolk.

"It's not so much about giving up, but having a mindfulness so you can open your eyes up to what Jesus is calling you to do," said Jones. "The idea is you could be spending that time in prayer, instead of on Facebook."

Going without Facebook leaves "a big void," Byker joked. When online, she now spends her time on news Web sites.

"The first few days have been easy because I was just getting sick of it," she said. "But I'll be excited to get back after 40 days and see what pictures people have tagged of me and what messages they've left on my wall."

Kate Shellnutt, former Pilot 757 teen correspondent and Pilot intern, shellnuttk@wlu.edu