I gave up social media for a month on an impulse. It was the middle of the morning. I had loads to do. I hadn't got round to starting anything. I was miserable, But I had managed to fit in my usual social media habits around my lack of achievement. Was social media holding me back? I didn't know, but like everyone I much prefer finding a scapegoat to actually thinking a problem through. So there and then I decided I would give it up for a month and see what effect it had on my life.
This was a classic bit of "shoot, aim, load" behaviour and I really hadn't thought it through. But on reflection I decided that I was spending at least 10% and possibly as much as 30% of my brainpower on reading, absorbing, appreciating and above all responding to various social media. It was a big drain. So investigating whether it was worth it was definitely in order. My ground rules - which I came up with after I had started - were no Twitter at all, check Facebook minimally and don't get involved on discussion threads on blogs. (I have a number of people I need to keep in touch with who only use Facebook so I couldn't eliminate it entirely.)
First off, how did I do keeping to it? I was able to stay off Twitter more or less, though you do find that some links you follow take you to it. Facebook I have always found pretty resistible. But sadly I did lapse a few times by adding my comments to discussions on blog posts. Somehow I find I just can't resist adding my opinions to the debate sometimes even though I am pretty sure nobody cares what I think and am absolutely sure that I don't get any pleasure from the process. But the volume of this backsliding wasn't too bad, and not enough to spoil the exercise.
So what did I learn? First off, that Twitter is the most addictive platform for me. Several times I nearly gave in and I had frequent pangs. I think I must be literally addicted to it in the clinical sense. I found myself getting physical withdrawal symptoms. They weren't extreme, but I did get twitches in my fingers when Twitter crossed my mind. I had to remove all shortcuts from my desktop. The rest I found I could live without with no real problem.
But my big question was is my Twitter habit squeezing out other things from my life that I value more - in particular is it interfering with my ability to make a living. I have to say I think that it is. My estimate of percentage of brain power absorbed is a lot nearer to 30% than 10%. I found that I could get back to doing something productive a lot quicker after a break when I was off Twitter. I usually start off the day with a target for the amount of work I need to get done. For the last month I have had a much higher chance of hitting that target before the evening. I think that is enough of a benefit.
On the other hand I do really enjoy Twitter, and I found that I was missing it for some good reasons. I like the humour - an hour spent on Twitter is often more entertaining than the same time spent watching television.
So the conclusion was reasonably easy when I thought about it. Twitter is disruptive enough that I need to control my access to it. I can't trust myself to have a quick 5 minutes on it during the day. But I think it is something I do want in my life. And in fact I enjoy it most when I can spend time on it, rather than have a quick look. The other problem with it is the temptation to continually check it to see if anyone has responded to my latest tweet. So I will restrict my Twitter access to the hours of 7 to 10 in the evening. Also, with any tweet I choose to make which isn't topical, I'll schedule it in the future and forget about it. That way I won't be tempted to check it so often. I will also look into site blocking software to put a block on using it outside these hours. I may not need this last step in the long run as I am pretty good at sticking to habits once I have established them, but Twitter does exert a powerful pull on me so I think I need to make it as easy as possible for myself.
The unattractiveness of Facebook is enough to ensure I don't overuse that. This leaves blog comments. I think I will simply continue my ban on them. I have a feeling that I can live without them if I am getting a bit of Twitter.
All in all, the experiment was an interesting one. I have found before that doing this kind of thing is a good way to learn the kind of person you really are. I don't think of myself as skittish and easily distracted, but it turns out that that is exactly how I behave. I have the kind of gravitas and self confidence that comes with getting into my fifties with a reasonably successful career and set of achievements. But it turns out that I still have some of the traits of a teenager with attention deficit when I am at my computer and nobody is watching. I also have some tendency to addictive behaviour as well - something that being a non-smoking, non drug using person who drinks very sparingly has blinded me to. Not a bad set of lessons to draw from something I started doing pretty much on a whim.
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