Sybil had 16
personalities in her head.
Toni Collette has 6 on
the show “United States of Tara”.
Ted Bundy claimed to
have a few sharing his mental dining room table.
I have close to 4,000
by choice.
So, it was a no
brainer when it was time to tune out all the voices I had collected in Social
Media and hit the tasty red “STOP” button that freezes the world so I can get
off for a while.
It had been a very
busy few weeks. Works was insane. Personal life was willy-nilly. My “household
tasks” to social media were escalating. My responsibility to myself was gone.
Something had to give. It was time to propel myself into a self imposed Social
Media Exile. I was notorious for doing it. I had even blogged about it several
times. But something was different this time. There was a ground swell of
others who had heard the same strange melody in their minds as well. It sounded
vaguely like Streisand’s and Summer’s duet, “Enough is Enough”. Others were
tuning out as well. 3 people I knew personally had deactivated their Twitter. 4
said “talk to the hand” to Facebook. 1 finally said good-bye to MySpace (I
swear!).
Now, I could sit here
and give you one or two expert quotes on social media burn out, the signs, the
solutions, the dramatic weepy tales of lost followers. I won’t. You have heard
it all 729 times and half of you reading this have blogged on your own
experiences with it. All I will say is
“STEP AWAY FROM THE
KEYBOARD!”
I was posting once
maybe twice a day on Facebook. I was “liking” things on friends pages just so
they would remember who I was (pathetic). I was clicking every single “Follow
Friday” suggested person sent my way even if I had nothing at all to discuss
with them. I had never had the urge to chat about the behavioral patterns of
Redwood Mites however I was friending people who studied them. (Seriously).
“PLACE THE iPHONE ON
THE GROUND & STEP BACK!”
It was time to take a
break. How did I do? Fair to moderate. I peeked into Facebook but did not
respond except once or twice to time sensitive item or to address one of the
friends directly who I had mentioned walked away from Twitter so I sent them a
personal message that I wrote off as “email” to convince myself it was not
utilizing social media (#fail). End run on sentence.
If people wanted to
find me, they could call or text. Texting is not social media by the way so
don’t cry “cheater” and banish me to the gulag.
So, I encourage you to
step back. Take a break before it breaks you. Or, just learn to manage it
better than I did for a spell there. It’s an addiction. A social one but an
addiction none the less unless kept in check.
Oh, and here are some great articles by great people on this great subject!