{"id":3424,"date":"2011-11-23T13:10:15","date_gmt":"2011-11-23T19:10:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/?p=3424"},"modified":"2011-11-23T13:09:32","modified_gmt":"2011-11-23T19:09:32","slug":"101-days-without-social-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/2011\/11\/23\/101-days-without-social-media\/","title":{"rendered":"101 Days Without Social Media"},"content":{"rendered":"
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http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/rgourley\/<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Today at 8:00 p.m. is the end: 101 days without social media.<\/p>\n

I made it.<\/p>\n

I’d like to say it had a profound effect on me. In some ways, at least initially, it did. Then it was just a no-issue kind of thing I didn’t think about much. It was no longer, “I’m giving something up, and this is what I’m gaining”; it became, “Social what?”<\/p>\n

I like aspects of social media, but inside a couple months, I realized I could never see it again and be absolutely fine with that.<\/p>\n

But since I can now jump on Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus to say, “Check out what happened when I gave up social media for 101 days,” I should probably write a bit more, huh?<\/p>\n

A Quick Recap<\/strong><\/h2>\n

On August 14, after reading about Monica Valentinelli’s experiences with a 100-Day Social Media Blackout<\/a>, I toyed with the idea of a 30-day break. Discussions on my personal Facebook page led to me not only taking the challenge, but deciding to go 50 days. I started the break at 8:00 that evening.<\/p>\n

Along the way, CM Stewart<\/a> dared me to go 100 days. I decided to take the challenge and add a day, going 101 days without Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.<\/p>\n

So, how’d it go?<\/p>\n

At First…<\/strong><\/h2>\n

At first I missed social media.<\/p>\n

Like most people using social media, I check things on my computer at home and on my phone when I’m on the go. While I don’t have a single push notification set on my phone and probably never will, I still built up a not-so-healthy Pavlovian reaction to social media.<\/p>\n