I needed to unplug from social sites this weekend (Memorial Day). Obsessively keeping up with Twitter and IRC was beginning to stress me out. After more than a year without a break it was time.
Some people can simply minimize their client or app, walk away and live their life. I could not. Obsession seems to be my middle name. I love my Twitter and IRC friends, but sometimes I just need to be alone; to read a book, or listen to music, or sit in silence, or even get out of the house.
I love Twitter. Usually. I get most of my breaking news from there now, both silly and serious. And it’s wonderful to keep up with my friend’s lives and moods; it gives me a real feeling of community. But sometimes it starts to feel just a bit oppressive to keep up with. Or maybe it was because I kept it open on my desktop and hit refresh every five minutes. Time to log out.
IRC can be great, but after more than a year without a break, I just didn’t want to say ‘hi’ to dozens (or hundreds) of people any more, or answer the same questions over and over. For fifteen hours a day. I also find the multiple tabs for channels (chat rooms) and PMs stressful. Carrying on conversations with more than one person at a time is at best unsatisfying. My preference tends to be either to connect with someone or be left alone. Introvert thy name is Jeannie. And I was so obsessed with keeping up and not missing anything that I wasn’t taking care of myself. I was failing to eat, drink water, take breaks or do any work. Even my sleep was being effected. Time to log out.
I also needed a break from keeping up with so many podcasts. Some people complain that they’ll have nothing to listen to and nothing to do if they “run out of” podcasts. I love the podcasts I listen to and the people who record them, but I also wanted time to hear music I haven’t heard in over a year. I wanted to just sit or lie on my couch without a laptop or netbook. I wanted to watch movies or tv shows without also being on the computer, obsessively checking social sites.
So I took a little holiday. And it was goood.