There was a call for “The great Twitterout” on facebook. I thought I will take up the challenge and keep myself off from the social media. Well, I am not exactly doing a 100% social media blackout. I am still using blogs (which will show up in my facebook profile and twitter). I am using Google feed reader (and also sharing through the Google Reader, which also shows up in my facebook profile). I cannot avoid the ultimate social networking utility that goes by the name of email on a working day. Essentially, I am using some of the social utilities or apps with social on it. There is no way I can cut myself off 100% from the social media.
In this experiment, I am keeping myself off from Twitter, Facebook, Pownce, Jaiku, Seesmic, Mogulus and Kyte.tv. The idea is to see how efficient I am when I keep myself off from these apps and also to see if it is an addiction. When I work on my computer, I usually take some short breaks every now and then, and the first place I visit on the web happens to be facebook or one of the other social networking sites. Also, my twitter app on the browser status bar always keeps popping up with messages from my “friends” and I tend to click on any interesting link, whenever I am not in the middle of an important work. At times, I log into my social networking sites involuntarily and I hope this experiment will help me understand if it is some sort of an addiction or just practice. It has been two hours since I started the “social media blackout” experiment. So far, I could resist my temptations. I will have to wait and see if I can successfully stay away till midnight. I will update this post after my experiment is over.
PS: I want to state that I had participated in a “Google blackout” experiment several months back, when ReadWriteWeb had put up a challenge. I failed in that experiment as I couldn’t avoid Google from my life even for a single day. I just hope I am able to stay out of social media for a day.
Update: I have successfully managed to stay away from Twitter, Facebook, Pownce, kinda social sites for the whole 24 hours. This experience helped me realize how much time I spend on these sites and I can now optimize the workflow to be more efficient.
