DISQUS

gregory · 1 year ago

life goes on without our attending to it too .... there is a deeper spiritual thing going on here, i know it is not easy to use that word around people, but yogis and buddhas have been thinking about attention for a long time ...

a parallel can be made with the busy mind ... so many thoughts, can make us crazy, but if we pay attention to who's having the thoughts, no problem, just thoughts ... same with all the stuff in our inbox(es) ... trust that the right thing comes at the right time, and it is easy to deal with

real overload is being in a meadow on a sunny spring day, totally amazing, and we handle that rush quite nicely ... it is no different than hitting every link on techmeme .... lol ... trust me, it is not...

enjoy, breathe, continue

n8k99 · 1 year ago

i have been coping this attitude quite a bit lately, mostly to fight my inner addictive urges to get more early adopter about things- i mean it's social media- not enforced media- sometimes the conversation twists in directions which have little to no true significance, say from a perspective of five to ten feet away, much less from 20 000 feet.

so i'll join you in not getting out of control and relaxing a little and enjoying life in its totality.

noahcarter · 1 year ago

Thank you for writing this post. The trick-or-treating has been great, but I'm getting a little sick on the candy myself. I'm giving it a rest.

Louis Gray · 1 year ago

I am just the Robin to your Batman. It is you who has the super powers.

sarahintampa · 1 year ago

No, you are Batman...you see, I have to turn the TV off when I write a blog post. :)

Louis Gray · 1 year ago

At this moment, I am writing a blog post in Apple Mail, and listening to the A's game via MLB.com. The score is 2-2, and it just went to commercials between innings. In the other browser window, FriendFeed is updating. It's not hard. Just takes practice. :-)

Svetlana Gladkova · 1 year ago

Louis, sure it does take practice and it is not actually difficult to learn multi-tasking to an extent where you have dozens of browser tabs open plus a few desktop apps fetching you emails, twitter, friendfeed, IMs. But I agree with Sarah 100% - it is definitely time that we measure how deep we actually WANT to be involved and how necessary it is to follow all the discussions on FF. Honestly, I feel that tracking all those talks on FF has damaged my other important activities (not real life even, simply other tasks that constitute my job in addition to being on FF - in fact, I don't think FF should be my major job activity, after all) and after reading this post I am REALLY going to at least impose some schedule of checking/replying to tweets and FF discussion - and at least try to follow the schedule :)

sarahintampa · 1 year ago

Maybe I do better than I think - I always have a million open tabs, Twhirl running, and more often than not, MySocial 24x7 in my sidebar, which pops up notices here and there. A Gmail Firefox plugin alerts me when I have new mail and sometimes I even have Snackr scrolling RSS feeds at the bottom of my screen. However, adding TV to the mix kills my focus. Music can be OK - depending on the type - but TV sucks me in.

Igor Schwarzmann · 1 year ago

Sarah, well, you might not be Lois Gray, but in terms of a social media superstar ... well, let's say it like this: from a perspective out of Germany, you're pretty much it. Maybe not the AAA one, but enough to mentioned on the news. ,)

Anyway, what I actually wanted to say was this: I think, it's part of our job to scan twhirl more often then anybody would do it, if it was just for fun. In the end of the day, if you find a nice hint on twitter, it could be a blog post you'll end up writing for RWW. The problem of the social media early adopters is, that we have to many options, tools and information to work through. In some way it was a lot easier to be a journalist in the 80s, because you had a phone in your office and a fax machine. That's it. No cell phone, no SMS, not eMail, no twitter, no friendfeed and definitely no RSS (and no bloggers who can critisize their work).

I'm not complaining, because it's a fascinating time right now. But it is more work, because we have a lot more to process. Which brings us back to filter technology and semantic web.

sarahintampa · 1 year ago

Thanks, Igor! You're right - during the week, I treat my involvement as part of my work - by weekend I morph into the "average" user.

Igor Schwarzmann · 1 year ago

I hate to break it to you, Sarah, but having a blackberry and a twitter client on it, isn't not "average". ,) Even if you're not constantly checking twitter, it's still is the early adopter in you.

Don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with that. "We" have another sense of not being constantly connected.

Barbara Ling · 1 year ago

Getting a life...it's a good thing indeed.

I'm normally a shy individual so I really do benefit from communications like Twitter and Friendfeed (no telephone required!) but I have been able to turn it off when I crave quiet time with my family.

I suppose it's the 'all things in moderation' thingee.....

Barbara

robdiana · 1 year ago

Sarah, I think the issue is whether we can all find a balance, unless you are Louis Gray or Robert Scoble. I followed the herd yesterday to Plurk just to see what the buzz was about . I will never get those 2 hours back. The key is to find what you like and only try things that seem relevant to what you do or know. Or at least that is the only way I can manage it all.

sarahintampa · 1 year ago

Hmm, but I like everything! :)

Louis Gray · 1 year ago

That's also where filters come into play, in that you can add new networks or news pages, but hide all those things you find irrelevant. Plurk is interesting, but even less useful than Twitter, which is hard to do!

Clif Notes · 1 year ago

I agree. It's a matter of filtering. Like Sarah, I can't live without RSS. I've delved just a bit into Twitter and FriendFeed. I can't get too exited about them or their ilk. The signal to noise ratio is too high. I'm either immune to the "addiction" or I'm just plain too old to see the value.

One more comment: Sarah, you may not be a super-star, but you are still cool with me.
Best wishes

Clif

sarahintampa · 1 year ago

As are you - I think you may be one of my longest readers!

mmakuch · 1 year ago

I think when you are constantly using social networks to talk and discuss social networks things can become a little bit of an overly insular vortex and its tough to stop and smell the roses. Ultimately the best apps will hopefully cross the chasm and be adopted by the masses. When that happens, they will not be continually used for talking about or discussing social networks. There will pretty much be niche business uses and a whole bunch of personal use with some kind of advertising/marketing aspect layered in. And what that comes down to is that people will probably be discussing ideas less and simply sharing their regular life experiences more. So its probably good to take a break and think of it as an experiment in being an average user. Twitter occasionally about what the roses smell like. That's that joe and sally will be doing.

Evan Brown · 1 year ago

This really resonates with what's been bouncing around in my head for the past few weeks. A week in Florida and away from Twitter/Facebook/GReader, etc. did me some real good and gave me perspective. This week I've decided to leave my laptop at work, which means that I spend almost 2 hours on the train with only the Blackberry and, get this, books. No, not a Kindle, but real books. And on topics of the analog world: history, philosophy, etc. Like a breath of this late spring air!

Mark Evans · 1 year ago

Sarah,

This is a post that exactly mirrors what I've been thinking about recently. There are only so many hours in the day so you need to prioritize your needs/interests AND ensure you have a healthy balance between digital and non-digital worlds.

I've started, for example, to keep Twitter off until noon to give myself time to focus better on other things. I've also decided Friendfeed can't be part of my social media portfolio because I'm already stretched too thin, and I don't feel like I'm missing anything. Maybe you and I are exceptions to the rule but do not be surprised if digital fatigue becomes more obvious among the digitrati.

Mark

sarahintampa · 1 year ago

I've been paring down my Twitter and FriendFeed usage lately and what I've found is that I can hop into either of them whenever I feel like it and still get involved in conversations. The key was breaking the addictive habit of having to watch them both all the time. I still think Twitter is a bit more useful than FriendFeed, though.