Are we too busy tweeting to care?

love it! so much =)I hope to get your e-mail to ask you then i will I record the answers in my article ...

I don't really remember if I ever posted this video to you, but here you go.
Read and take a look, I am sure it will shed some light on your "problem". And don't worry, we all have it at some point. I am "recovering" so to say, it's important to stop once in a while when you feel overwhelmed and gain back some equilibrium.

Hi Antonia, that was spot on, as usual. I like :-)

Have you ever gone a month without Twitter and/or Facebook, focusing on those two in particular? Try it. If you don't last 30 days, so be it, but try it. Then write a blog article about the experience and what you learned.

Have you ever walked outside without your mobile device? Try it.

You can bitch all you want about the internet being unproductive to your lifestyle, but unless or until you can learn to remove yourself from it manually (and not when the services don't work), it's hard to gripe.

Hi Antonia! I can't believe I'm just now making my way over to your blog...love it! And I so relate to this post. To answer your question at the end: have you found a way to truly unplug and leave your online life behind to truly enjoy your offline one? Yes and no, but sometimes not by choice. You see, I have 2 kids and I run a public relations biz (my own - which in effect makes it 3 kids...4 if you throw in my husband). ;-)

Those really big (and glorious) distractions will often times force me to unplug. However...I find that I'm still wondering what's happening on my tweetdeck, who's commenting on my FB page, did I get a comment on my blog. I have updates and alerts for these items, but like you, my mind is going 24/7. To make matters worse, there's now guilt that goes both ways - guilt when I'm not paying attention to my family or biz AND guilt when on days like today, I'm not actively engaged with my social media world. Yikes.

You're right, we've got to find a way to truly enjoy the 'real' moments, while appreciating (and controlling) the online moments. I've been sitting on this topic for a blog post...thanks for the kick in the pants to finish it. Don't be surprised if I ping you!

I envision a future (granted I'm a guy and we have never had these discussions no matter the historical era) where girls sit around talking about a first date, and one asks the other, "So, how was the first kiss?"
To which she hesitantly answers, "Hold on, let me check. I know I tweeted about it."

Why this fictitious and perhaps far-fetched example came to mind, I'll never know. But I know this whole idea has consumed much of my thinking lately. Sometimes, I just need to walk outside, lay on my back, look up at the sky, breathe deeply, and remember that I'm alive independent of technology. It depends upon me, not the other way around.

Hey you,
Just had to let you know that this:
"At the end of the day, the Internet was invented to be our servant not our master."

...is BRILLIANT! I will have to quote you one day ;).

It's all pretty overwhelming to say the least.

I really liked this piece Antonia - well said - from many of us :).
Have a super week.
Cheers

Antonia,
I was told this week I'm an outlier. What does that mean? Oh -- I'm in the 1% of people who are online a lot, A LOT. So okay I follow 20 business blogs in my Google Reader, okay so I'm only 300 tweets away from 20,000 tweets. Okay, so I post on facebook an average of 20 times a day. Yup, I'm online all the time.

Except, I'm not. I spent the last week house sitting for a friend who doesn't have internet (gasp!). So every night I unplugged. The first day I just went to bed. Wow, so that's what sleep feels like! Then I started to get in the groove of things. I watched a little tv, I read a lot, I played with the dogs, I decompressed.

It's a new week, and I'm finding that after 8 p.m. I turn off now. Or at least I try to. The goal for me is to get 4-5 hours a day of unplugged time. Believe me, that's a lot.

However, being unplugged is making my plugged in time so much more productive!

So I'm trying this new thing of being off line a little each day. I'm liking it. It's working for me. Am I missing the instant tweets showing pictures of my cat rocking a chair? Yeah - kinda. However, during the day my tweets are clearer and have a better sense of direction. Payoff.

And in the end, we're all looking for what works.

Deb

I think we're all suffering from what's become an addiction to just in time information; and what better way for us to get our fix than through witty, seemingly professional or simply amusing characters on Twitter or through a quick status check-up on Facebook?

You've basically put into words what we're all thinking; has this gone too far? We can blame Twitter for us not fully engaging in our 'real' lives all day. Relationship (many marital) issues, people losing their jobs even and the like have occurred in consequence of abuse of social networks like Twitter and FB but like you say when you conclude: we need to learn to use these tools to serve rather than govern us.

Personally, I turn to Twitter mostly when I feel alone in the outside world. Not necessarily when I am upset, just by myself. I feel the need to be constantly 'in touch' and that's okay, because when the time comes, the laptop turns off, my phone goes in the drawer, and Im back here.

Nice one Antonia :)

So viele Vorteile internet, Facebook, Twitter, chatrooms usw. haben, wir sollten darüber nachdenken, dass die Nachteile bzw Gefahren mindestens so groß sind.... Verlust der Intimsphäre, Flucht in eine oft imaginäre Welt, Suchtpotiental..... Vergesen wir nicht unsere Sinne, riechen, schmecken, sehen, hören, fühlen, unsere Empfindungen......
die digitale Welt soll unser Leben erleichtern uns aber nicht daran hindern unser Leben zu leben!!!!!

Antonia,

We are all in the same epic struggle.
We'll support each other!

Greg