Liz Strauss on how to keep on course in social networks

There is so much signal and noise online about how there is too much signal and noise. We kvetch about too many emails, panic about not being able to read Twitter replies for a few days and use five social networks to promote the content we post on a 6th. Several people have posted over the past week on the need to go cold turkey and not be connected all the time.

Liz Strauss has done so this morning with an almost poetic elegance. She talks about having more connections online today than she had relationships as a kid.

"My life is replete with relationships and complex connections. Now I
have more social network passwords than the number of friends I had
when I was kid." Her solution, like so many of us is to turn it off now and then.

I do the same. On a recent Tahoe vacation I limited myself to one hour a day online. It was a tremendous help in letting me recharge my battery and make a series of important decisions.

Comments

[Jeff Glasson]

Shel,

I agree with your method of limiting online time during vacations and have done the same during previous trips to Hilton Head. On a more regular basis, I find the lazy days of summer here on the east coast a great reason to break away from the social media circus during the weekends. Of course, the never ending "honey-do" list might have a hand in that too..!

-Jeff

[shel israel]

Jeff,
Ah, the ever-present, always-growing "Honey-Do List." There will be no end to that.

[Liz Strauss]

Thanks, Shel, for noticing what I wrote this morning and for pointing it out.

I've finding that time away has made my time online much richer, more friendly, and more fun. It's what I said in my very first blog post, "When I give my soul room to breathe, everyone I know gets nicer."