Life Before Twitter…
Apr 26 2008 
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Do you remember your online life before Twitter?
I honestly don’t and life before Friendfeed is slowly slipping away too. Why? Because these tools have become deeply ingrained in my everyday online life and are spilling over into my offline life at an alarming rate. It’s pretty funny to me because I was one of those users who initially resisted joining Twitter and was 100% sure that Jaiku would come out on top. While I don’t regret my words, I’ve definitely had to eat them.
Twitter Experiment #1: Breaking The Habit
Nevertheless, I want to remember what life was like before Twitter. I remember using Google Reader a lot, but other than that, I don’t remember how else I received my news. So, next week Wednesday I’m going to stay off of Twitter for an entire day.
Some of you may think I’m crazy. Sarah Perez thinks I might die.
I think it’ll be a great challenge and I’m really excited about doing it. So excited in fact, that I’ll be staying off of Friendfeed too! No, I’m not smoking anything. I just think this will:
- allow me to get through my feeds with no problem
- help me find other methods of connecting with others
- help me find other methods for finding great content
- free up a lot of my time
I won’t be heading to Twitter or Friendfeed’s homepage nor using any clients. No tweets, no peeking at streams. Nada! Initially I thought about doing this for a week. Then, I thought of how close that is to rehab and decided that a day would do just fine.
What do you think? Do you think I can make it? Do you think I’m crazy? Will you miss me? Any recommendations on where I should go?
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My money says you'll have the shakes by 11 am.
lmao wow! Well, if I do you've jinxed me and that'll be my story!
Heyy!
I think you can absolutely do it! As long as nothing interesting happens. :-).
Good luck!
i ca go several days without either one- i think- but google reader, totally addicted!
Maybe I'll try that the following week.
You have to make sure you don't read Twitter too, not just don't post to it. And that goes from midnight to midnight!
My theory is the craving for twitter is similar to the craving for TV. Sure, you think you can't last a few days without seeing your regular shows, but on the occasion that you do miss them, you realize life goes on. It's just a *theory*, and Twitter is much easier to get on your cell phone than TV so I could well be wrong.
That was also the point of getting off of Friendfeed, so that I don't
accidentally catch up on Twitter. If I email you with some strange
message…know that I'm breaking.
True, but Twitter is bigger than your favorite shows. I don't have a
favorite Twitter follower. The content is random, but relevant on Twitter
and much faster.
oh, nevermind…I was reading your blog in reverse order. disregard my previous comment …LOL! :)
lmao I just replied to your comment too. :)
I kind of agree with Phil's observation. It is a bit like TV ….when you just pop off the top of a cool one, flop on easy chair opp the telly and then proceed to mindlessly channel surf – from ESPN to Asian food to CNBC to History to MTV and so on. Thats what Twittering is all about . Mindless – aimless – a tweet here – a comment there – NOW on your day off, go back to your Reader, and read all the nice feeds hat you have marked for yourself – the operative word here is “Read” – not skim thru a zillion tweets !
Not using Twitter or FriendFeed for a day will be easy – but to really reap the rewards you're identified will require more than a day. There are a lot of Twitter users that are in the same predicament as you describe, and I think a dilligent change in how we use Twitter/FriendFeed is the key.
The client software is one key to the addiction to these services – they check for us! They bring the content back to us! All we have to do when the notification bell dings is change over and review the updates. Going back to the web-based interface and scheduling time to Twitter/FriendFeed just like scheduling time to process email will be critical to managing the addiction.
Someone should develop a “twelve step” program… ;)
Regards,
Rick
I can't READ all of my feeds. Those will be skimmed too.
lol maybe I'll post about that.
I would have a super hard time with this! I've become addicted to it, I think. I can't wait to see how it goes for you, though! Good luck!
I too have become kind of hooked on it, I just wished that people would not create so much Twitter trash. Feel free to pass along some interesting/funny thoughts, news, ideas – just stop with the “I'm hungry” and the “my 2 year old just took a pee” junk. An improved signal to noise ratio would be appreciated. Only you can prevent Twitter trash :)
What heresy! I couldn't do it, I'm too weak.
I'm sure you'll make good use of the day, enjoy!
LOL! I totally understand. I had a day on the road recently, this was pre-Blackberry, and it happened to be the day they opened the site for @igniteportland tickets. I was so ticked that Twitter was their only means of communication (but that's another story)!
Anyway, you're probably too young to remember the early days of CompuServe. Back in the early to mid 90s some of us had Twitter/Friendfeed like experiences. I belonged to a “forum” that was quite active. We had group chat/IM, posted messages,basically everything that Social Media gives me today.
Imagine how weierd I was perceived back in the 90s?
LOL! I totally understand. I had a day on the road recently, this was pre-Blackberry, and it happened to be the day they opened the site for @igniteportland tickets. I was so ticked that Twitter was their only means of communication (but that's another story)!
Anyway, you're probably too young to remember the early days of CompuServe. Back in the early to mid 90s some of us had Twitter/Friendfeed like experiences. I belonged to a “forum” that was quite active. We had group chat/IM, posted messages,basically everything that Social Media gives me today.
Imagine how weierd I was perceived back in the 90s?
LOL! I totally understand. I had a day on the road recently, this was pre-Blackberry, and it happened to be the day they opened the site for @igniteportland tickets. I was so ticked that Twitter was their only means of communication (but that's another story)!
Anyway, you're probably too young to remember the early days of CompuServe. Back in the early to mid 90s some of us had Twitter/Friendfeed like experiences. I belonged to a “forum” that was quite active. We had group chat/IM, posted messages,basically everything that Social Media gives me today.
Imagine how weierd I was perceived back in the 90s?