My Social Media Addiction Update!

Curbing My Addiction
About two weeks ago I wrote the post, You Might Be A Social Media Addict If……Setting Boundaries On Social Media. In that post I proposed the 10 things that I was going to try to help curb my addiction. Two weeks is hardly an experiment, but I figured if I can’t be disciplined for two weeks, well then, maybe I’m in trouble. Below are the 10 things.

So here is what I am proposing I do:

1. Blog no more than 3 posts a week.
2. Stop email coming to my phone.
3. Stop checking Twitter on my phone. Only online.
4. Check Facebook only 1 time a day.
5. 10pm Internet Rule: Once 10 hits I can’t be online anymore.
6. Family Time: Focus on being present. No thinking about being online, or wanting to Twitter about something if it takes me away from being present (this is more subjective)
7. Visit no more than 25 blogs a day.
8. Saturday Sabbath: No internet (I’m not talking about checking a phone number or address) surfing.
9. No Twittering on Sunday
10. When I am with family (dinner with wife, playing with daughter)…no Twittering. This is subjective sometimes, because my wife and I might want to Twitter about something we are doing so the family can see. But you get the point.

So How Did I Do

1. Blog no more than 3 posts a week: SUCCEED. So far so good. I limited by posts pretty much, but did post one extra little blurb one day. I really felt a lot of great freedom in setting that criteria, rather than living under the pressure to always post. But I have decided to change this rule to 3 days of blogging rather than 3 posts. I just found that sometimes I wanted to write more. So it gives me the freedom to most more than once on one of those three days, or to write up some drafts ahead of time that can be released on certain days. I will probably settle on some 3 day rhythm Monday–Friday.
2. Stop email coming to my phone. FAIL, FAIL, FAIL. Attempted to disconnect it, and after not finding the command easily, abandoned the idea and failed miserably. Date package might be coming to an end on my phone though.
3. Stop checking Twitter on my phone. Only online. FAIL, FAIL, FAIL. This started out good, but by the 3rd day I was all over Twitter on my phone.
4. Check Facebook only 1 time a day. SUCCEED. I have continued to keep this up only getting on about once a day. There might have been a two day in there, but for the most part, one time a day has been suffice.
5. 10pm Internet Rule: Once 10 hits I can’t be online anymore. SUCCEED. I did send one email one time at about 11pm, but I was always off before 10 on all the other days. This has been a good rule. Shutting it down early and not taking online work with me in my mind so close to bed is really helpful.
6. Family Time: Focus on being present. No thinking about being online, or wanting to Twitter about something if it takes me away from being present (this is more subjective). SUCCEED. I made a huge effort to not be online when my wife and daughter were with me. If my wife had to work late one night and my daughter was asleep I would hop online. But chose not to surf the web while we were together, and limited Twitter to times where we both wanted to send a message out about what we were doing together.
7. Visit no more than 25 blogs a day. SUCCEED. I have stopped going to my Google Reader, and I search/read no more than 25 blogs a day, trying to switch up who I read, and the variety of content that I read throughout the week.
8. Saturday Sabbath: No internet (I’m not talking about checking a phone number or address) surfing. SUCCEED. Have not hopped online at all on a Saturday. Love having that be totally unplugged.
9. No Twittering on Sunday. SEMI-FAIL. Instead of not Twittering on Sunday, I chose not to Twitter on Saturday and succeeded, being unplugged from computer and Twitter all day. I did end up Twittering 1-2 times on those Sundays though instead.
10. When I am with family (dinner with wife, playing with daughter)…no Twittering. This is subjective sometimes, because my wife and I might want to Twitter about something we are doing so the family can see. But you get the point. SUCCEED. Didn’t Twitter unless my wife and I wanted a message to go out.

So all in all, not too bad. But I still need to tinker and adjust some things. I will keep you updated.