A Facebook and Twitter Diet

I'm pretty much your average netizen with an opinion. (Actually, I've always been rather opinionated; the arrival of the internet just meant that I could potentially bore even more people with my views).

It didn't take long for me to get hooked on Facebook and Twitter. I've been blogging for many web lightyears now, but the responses I get from these social networking sites are more immediate, frequent, varied and numerous. Moreover, through status updates, I was getting marvellous glimpses into the lives of friends, and learning new things through their experiences and interests.

But then it just got a bit silly. I was checking for updates way too often, as if life were that interesting from one click of the 'refresh' button to the next. Also, over the course of my day, I was bookending activities and amusing moments by providing a 140-character precis online.

So I was already feeling that I needed to take better control of my time and communication when a blinding moment of clarity came. Last Tuesday, I was sitting at my laptop reading posts that I had already read on my iPhone (because of course I have the Facebook app on there), when I finally twigged: surely I've got more productive things to do. Not exactly an earthshattering epiphany but it shifted me about 90 degrees. Different view from there. I wondered what it would be like to be completely off the radar. I decided to not visit my Facebook and Twitter accounts for the rest of that week.

The first several hours after quitting were really hard, but once I got past the 36-hour mark, it got easier. I was able to hold out until Saturday afternoon (and could've gone on longer if I hadn't seen Avatar on 3D at IMAX).

In the end, it was a great exercise in abstinence (which I don't tend to be very good at). And it helped me gain a Buddhist detachment from Facebook and Twitter -- which I had sorely needed. And yes, I did become more productive. Yey, me. This might bode well for the rest of the year.