{"id":3160,"date":"2011-09-11T07:00:15","date_gmt":"2011-09-11T12:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/?p=3160"},"modified":"2011-09-10T22:46:21","modified_gmt":"2011-09-11T03:46:21","slug":"a-month-without-social-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/2011\/09\/11\/a-month-without-social-media\/","title":{"rendered":"A Month Without Social Media"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Originally, tomorrow morning would have been the day — the day that I went back to Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.<\/p>\n

Four weeks ago on my personal Facebook account, I mentioned that I was thinking <\/em>about taking a 30-day social media break. Friends dared me to do it, and 30 days became 50. After being dared by C.M. Stewart<\/a> to go 100 days, it will now be late November before I log back on to any social networks.<\/p>\n

I’ve made it a month so far…<\/p>\n

This Week, Not So Bad
\n<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Last week<\/a>, I mentioned that I miss social networks on Saturday mornings. It wasn’t until later in the day, yesterday, that I realized I didn’t have the usual Saturday morning urge. I woke up, chatted with my wife, and wrote. I worked a little bit, too. And I relaxed and read.<\/p>\n

It wasn’t until getting ready to visit somebody Saturday evening that it dawned on me: I didn’t even think <\/em>about Facebook, Twitter, or Google+ for most of the day.<\/p>\n

Progress Report<\/strong><\/h2>\n

While I’m back on another pressing project at work, I’m still working on revising my second novel for an ebook, as well as doing some other writing. I have this weeks’ blog entries written and ready to go. I shot video for some extra Juggling Writer entries. And I still had time to sit around doing nothing.<\/p>\n

I’m not saying social media sites took up so much time that I now have tons of extra <\/em>time, but I did <\/em>spend a good hour or so each day on social media sites. Since I’ve always made time for writing and relaxing, the extra hour or so makes the time I already set aside seem that much longer. I never realized how quickly the stresses of, “I need to do this, or that,” creep in — even subconsciously.<\/p>\n

The “must get ready for work!” feeling in the morning stays away a bit longer, and it takes even longer to get to the “time for bed!” feeling in the evening.<\/p>\n

It’s nice.<\/p>\n

When It’s Been Hard<\/strong><\/h2>\n

When I found out that @dubejuggling<\/a> wished The Juggling Writer<\/em> a happy two-years, I really wanted to log on to Twitter and say thanks. It’s still in the back of my head to do just that one <\/em>thing.<\/p>\n

I’m a member of a great local WordPress users’ group<\/a>. During monthly meetups, the group communicates almost exclusively through Twitter. (#dfwwp.) It’s hard to ignore that.<\/p>\n

In mid October comes the big test: I’ll be attending PodCamp Dallas<\/a>. Especially during tech conferences, nothing seems to beat Twitter for seeing what’s going on and for communicating with everybody. Last-minute changes and impromptu gatherings are usually passed along through Twitter. October 15 will be a tough day.<\/p>\n

It was also strange for The Juggling Writer<\/em> to turn two without mentioning it on social media sites.<\/p>\n

But those are the few times it’s been hard. Each week, it gets a little easier.<\/p>\n

Next Month<\/strong><\/h2>\n

So there it is: one month without social media!<\/p>\n

It took some getting used to, but I’m writing, blogging, and relaxing more. There’s a little bit of a reclusive side to not being connected, but I’m also reminded of how into social media I was when somebody hears what I’m doing and they tell me, “I’d DIE without Facebook!”<\/p>\n

I’m still alive, and maybe even living a bit better than I was a month ago…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Originally, tomorrow morning would have been the day — the day that I went back to Facebook, Twitter, and Google+. Four weeks ago on my personal Facebook account, I mentioned that I was thinking about taking a 30-day social media break. Friends dared me to do it, and 30 days became 50. After being dared […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3160"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3160"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3160\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}