Lately I've been feeling sick of social media. I did it to myself. Like a kid who has been given the keys to a candy store, I was gorging myself on it. Every time I needed a break or wanted a break or was bored I reflexively turned to my facebook or twitter feed. It was making me unproductive and encouraging me to think in 140 character sound bites. It really got to the breaking point when I discovered the Daily Mail online. I became a voracious reader of sensationalist news about people I didn't know and who were not doing anything meaningful that I needed to know about (e.g., "Will & Kate on Babymoon!" "Ellen & Portia & Katy Perry's Boobs at the Grammys!").
On Monday I declared to myself that I would go on a social media diet. No checking Facebook or Twitter or Pinterest or blogs or even news websites during the day. I turned off the social media notifications on my phone too. The silence was deafening. I was so used to this visual and mental chatter running all day that it was striking to have it cut off cold turkey, but I pressed on.
It turns out I had a super-productive day. Sure, there were many times that I wanted to post something to my friends and tweeps, things like:
- MasterCard's fraud protection service rocks - they just spotted three 16 cent charges from "Expedia France" on my credit card and sent me 3 text messages, an email and called all 3 phone numbers they had for me to let me know!
- Who has a good source of bingo cards for State of the Union Bingo tonight?
- Leftover chai cake with ginger butter cream icing = breakfast of champions!
- Having a productive day since I went on my social media diet
So now Lent has officially started and I think I've found what I'll be giving up this year. Lent is a time of contemplation, a time to try and silence the noise of our world. I'm going to use this time to focus more on fewer things and spend meaningful time with the people who matter most to me. And I'm going to try and share my thoughts and experiences more fully here on my blog.
Except there's no way to "like" your blog post :-)
Posted by: Paul | February 13, 2013 at 11:04 AM
Thanks Paul!
Posted by: Jan Poston Day | February 13, 2013 at 09:18 PM
My good friend Tim Sanders often talks about being wary of what you feed your brain and how putting too much of a bad thing negative information.
Posted by: Weight Loss Diet | February 20, 2013 at 06:49 AM
It was making me unproductive and encouraging me to think in 140 character sound bites.
Posted by: see top followers instagram | April 07, 2013 at 01:28 AM