Some of you may remember I gave up Twitter for Lent this year. I confess my motivations weren’t all high-mindedly spiritual. Far from it, in fact. I knew I wouldn’t, for example, spend the time I usually spent on Twitter praying, or reading the Bible – most of the time I spend on Twitter is at work. And I am under no illusions about Twitter’s importance in the grand scheme of things – the fact that I even had to worry about giving it up is a problem of privilege.
I mainly wanted to do two things: give up something for Lent that demanded a lot of my attention, however trivial it seems; and break the cycle I’d gotten into of hopping onto Twitter every few minutes during the workday, scrolling and clicking links ad infinitum. I wanted to use Twitter as more of a tearoom, as Marianne says, rather than a constant stream of distraction that left me feeling frazzled and guilty for wasting so much time.
Since Easter, I’ve been tweeting again – though I find I have less to say these days. And while I still sometimes fall into the scrolling trap, I’ve at least gotten better at catching myself when I start clicking multiple links or reading dozens upon dozens of tweets (as opposed to the freshest 20 tweets or so).
It’s not ideal, but it’s a step. Catching myself, and refocusing, sure beats mindlessly giving into the urge and letting my time-wasting go unchecked. I guess this is what they call self-discipline.
Anyone else struggle with the distractions of social media (or other distractions)? How do you catch yourself and refocus?
cakes, tea and dreams 
I saw a statistic yesterday that overwhelmingly lists email and Facebook as the top procrastination tools for creatives. The problem is compounded, however, by the fact that email (and the internet) is also our primary source of communication. Definitely need to up the discipline! : )
Yes, yes, yes. I find that doing just what you did…fasting from social media, is a great way for me to keep my priorities right. I try and fast from all media several times a year. There was a time where I thought I would just get off social media altogether, but I would be completely out of the loop of family and close friends if I did that. I guess the key for me is to keep it in perspective.
I’m in a link-clicking, blog reading spiral right now! I try to set time limits on my Internet time, otherwise it’s so easy to lose an hour in the blink of an eye.
I have been where you are- wasting time clicking link after link, it definitely results in guilt. The relocation and the weeks preparing for it have limited my social media time- I have to admit that I feel like I have broken free of the chains! I can’t guarantee it’s forever though 🙂 I do more reading at night than tweeting- imagine that!
I’ve subscribed to the most interesting persons’ twitter feeds (including yours :-)) in my feed reader. This way I can catch up later and don’t have the feeling to miss something.
Reblogged this on Bleh and commented:
Greetings 🙂
We step into lent tomorrow with Ash Monday, and I’ve decided to give up Twitter – in addition to the usual red meat – this time. Earlier today, out of curiosity, I ran a Google search for ‘Giving Up Twitter for Lent’ and realised it was a practice on the rise. I also found articles arguing for and (surprisingly) against giving up social networking during lent. This article says everything I wanted to write, so I thought it best if I reblogged this, rather than writing a new post 🙂