I never tried a cigarette, but I have friends and family who smoked.
When they quit, they all mentioned how much of a habit reaching for a cigarette was. Just BOOM! they reached out for something that was no longer there.
I mentioned yesterday that I’m taking a 50-day break from social media. Sunday night before going to bed, I did it without thinking–I typed “F-A-C…” in my Web browser’s address bar and “Facebook.com” popped up. I pressed the enter key on my keyboard and the page popped up.
I logged out of all these sites (and removed them from my iPhone), before starting the break, so the Facebook login page popped up. I didn’t see anything, but it hit me: without thinking, I logged into Facebook. It was automatic; my browser even helped get me there faster by filling in the rest of the URL!
Morning’s Are Different, Now
One of the first things I do when I wake up is check email and social media sites. (Much like a smoker reaches for a cigarette.)
I wake up, reach over to the nightstand for my iPhone and my glasses, and I do a quick sweep through things to see what happened in the world during the 6-9 hours I’ve been asleep.
As I make my way to the kitchen to get coffee and a little something to eat, I stop off in my office to fire up my work computer and my personal computer.
When I get back to my desk, I reply to Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ messages and updates while waiting for my work system to fully boot up. I read blog feeds and check out some other things online before turning my attention to work.
In addition to cutting out all social media sites, I significantly reduced the amount of blogs in my blog reader. Now when I’m done with my sweep through the blogs I really follow, when I refresh things, new entries aren’t there. In such a short time, I’ve reduced the morning info-dump and forced myself to go back to an old habit: being very productive early in the day.
If I’m up before 7:00, I write. If I’m up around 7:00, I go straight to work.
I get things done early, and without interruption.
The Urge
The urge to check Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ is still there. When I reach the point of taking a break with writing or work, I find myself starting to fall into the old habit of completing a sweep of social media sites without even thinking about it. I check my blog feeds, but they come through much slower now. Even email seems quiet. And I’m forced to get right back to work, whether it’s day job work or the writing I do on the side.
The Excuse (Is Dead)
I’m not the only writer who works from home who says I use social media because writing is lonely work and it’s my equivalent of chatting with coworkers. There may even be some truth to that. But in my case, my wife is home, too–I always have somebody I can chat with. And I like that writing is lonely, quiet work…it’s one of the many reasons I write.
Taking a break from social media is already a strong reminder of just how much I really cherish quiet time alone with uninterrupted thoughts.
Already, I can tell that when these 50 days are up, I’ll have a totally different relationship with social media.
I admire your drive to take a break. I don’t visit FB or + much, except to stay in touch with my kids, and I resent the commercialization of the systems. They really exist in order to glean purchasing information about me to sell to advertisers.
Paul,
I use Facebook to stay in touch with family and friends. I think the big thing I’ll miss is staying in touch with old friends in Chicago, and some friends who ended up in Boston. But my local friends…I can just go see them and enjoy it more than clicking a Like button on a photo of their breakfast.
I definitely don’t miss seeing political posts on Facebook. Even people with similar taste in politics as mine–I don’t like the constant bombardment of things. I don’t care to see the whole, “You know you grew up in BeetleButt, USA if…” posts or people asking people to post some cause to their Facebook wall for an hour.
There’s so much–especially on Facebook–that’s become automatic things people do and tiring of wading through those things to get to the things I’m more concerned with seeing is what really made me think, “I want to take a break from all this.”
I suspect that once the reflex habit of it all stops that it will be everything I hope the break will be and that the experiment may go beyond 50 days for some things. While [especially for me] Facebook is a great way to stay in touch, it’s a convenient way to stay in touch. I have local friends with whom I’ve said, “Hey, want to get a cup of coffee?” for ages and we never get together. If they’re too busy to get a cup of coffee, even any communication on Facebook is surface at best. And for anybody I’m not in touch with wanting to connect, a Google search for “Christopher Gronlund” or “Chris Gronlund” brings you my way.
So I’m looking forward to the break. Already, my reflex when I’m compelled to check Facebook or something is going back to “Write even more!” so how bad is that?
“I definitely don’t miss seeing political posts on Facebook. Even people with similar taste in politics as mine–I don’t like the constant bombardment of things. I don’t care to see the whole, “You know you grew up in BeetleButt, USA if…” posts or people asking people to post some cause to their Facebook wall for an hour.”
These are some of the biggest reasons I don’t enjoy things like Facebook, along with the fact that Facebook has a habit of pushing changes that you have to dig to opt out of.
So far, one of the biggest things I’m missing (aside from seeing what friends are up to) are the posts from some of my costuming friends that are not on their blogs. American Duchess, for example, tends to post any interesting historical garments or stories as well as blogs I haven’t seen yet. I wonder how many awesome or helpful things I’m missing.
You’ve reminded me that I should go through and remove some of the clutter in my news reader. There are several things that I don’t read at all. While it’s a shame to remove them since I have found a few things I was interested in, they also post on Twitter, so maybe I’ll notice it there. Other things, you probably follow so I’ll hear about it from you if it might interest me.
Yes, cutting back and organizing better is the main thing I’m taking from this. I won’t be giving up social networking entirely, but this will be a good time to try to get achieve some goals, as well as re-thinking how I use these services.