While socially detoxing, I wanted to log how I felt as I started pulling myself from the draw of the social web. Also, its strange how I am having more ideas of my own as I begin the detox.
Productivity
First, productivity has been high. I’m not chained to my Droid (yes, I don’t have an iPhone). I turned off all Twitter and Facebook notifications so I’m finding myself to be more prompt to reply to e-mails as well. I’m sure my wife thanks me for this as I constantly annoy her with my need to check my email and Twitter.
Back to Basics
When I first entered the internet age, I was very disconnected from the social web. I had a blog and that was about it. I miss those days. I found myself blogging often and loving it. I was always thinking about ideas and problem solving for my industry.
Since micro blogging, I’ve lost my first love of writing, although I’m no pro. I’ve also stopped contributing as much to my industry, but rather, turned to incessant chatter on Twitter.
What led to any web popularity that I may have all stemmed as a result of me pulling inward, and following my instincts to create. I didn’t need CSS galleries or other people’s work to make something unique. I just followed what I felt inside. I truly feel that what has made me good, not great, but good at what I do was spent as a result of separating myself from others, not following.
I feel creativity returning to me. Let’s see what happens.
About the Title
So apparently I’ve made no connection to the title of this post. In all honesty, this post was going to be about a sentence long, but has since grown. I wanted to tell you about the best thing that has happened today. Here are some highlights of today:
- My best friend telling me that he misses me and loves me.
- Starting to read blogs and learning again. I haven’t read a post in ages.
- My son asked me if I thought he was beautiful. Yes, he is.
On Remembering
As a kid I used to remember everything vividly. Now, I remember things as lumps of emotions or feelings. I feel like the diversity of the things that I did as a kid helped to create defined memories. As of now, I feel like my life blurs from one day to the next due to the fact that I am doing activities that are so similar: work, make dinner, put the kids to bed, tv, work, bed, and so on.
I need to change this cycle. I want defined memories and I want to remember last year as more than a blur. I’m heavily thinking about trying a four day work week leading to a three day work week. I’m thinking about trying something totally new each day. Whatever I do, I need to break this cycle.
This article was written unedited and will remain so. All typos were intentional. No animals or mustachioed men were harmed during the writing of this post.
I’m really interested in what you discover on this path to detoxification. I find myself seeing things through a similar perspective. Thanks for sharing!
Best article I’ve read in quite a long time. Couldn’t agree more with the lest paragraph especially.
Hey there, great post!
I kicked out Facebook, Twitter etc last month, I just had enough really, some things were great like my family being able to check my little updates and photos (as we’re not in the same country), but then most of it was just noise. I’ll email them the pics instead, or stick them in a digital frame and send that instead :)
For the social networking sites, I wouldn’t say I was a heavy user, but I’m sure I’ve gained around 1 hour a day, plus the sub-conscious time mulling over whatever was said or not in the 1 hour looking. I’m convinced we are being distracted from the good life, chit chatting about whether the ipad will be a success or not. For the time I’ve spent, I’ve been learning a language… plus my RSI / strained eyes are happier!
Another reason I left was I read this article about how 50 years ago we were looking out at the moon and the connecting the world… and now we spend our time staring at the screen, whilst the seasons come and go.
One more was I have the feeling my sons will turn round in 10 or 15 years and say “Pop? Well he’s alright, our house is bit bigger than before and 2 weeks a year we go to nice places… he’s always been bit busy for us though, can’t remember much else other than he still works away a lot…”
So with this small epiphany we (my partner and I) have decided to actively move away from the race, and aim for 9months a year work, then 8, then 6, stick with the same car, and be more creative with many mini-holidays so they don’t need much money.
So, good luck, and keep goin’ :) Look forward to the next update! (but not whilst your supposed to be having dinner / walking in the park etc ;))
Dan
p.s. I actually found your site whilst researching for my organisation whether Javascript frameworks can be used to replace our desktop applications, and your site is one of the “top 50″, but then became more interesting in your writings than the research ;) http://www.kriesi.at/archives/50-websites-that-make-amazing-use-of-javascript