Social Media Overload
Every once in a while, questions were asked regarding how to overcome social media addiction issues. Although social media can be a productive tool for business and marketing purpose, it can equally play a negative role if you lack disciplines, not being able to control your usage of different social networks. For example, some people get so addicted to social media that they totally lose the work efficiency. They check back over and over again on their Facebook homepage, trying to predict the next person who is going post on their Facebook wall. This behavior can easily cost you hours per day. There are many most commonly committed social media sins we all need to be aware of. I will examine 5 of them and list the solutions accordingly.
Issue #1
Symptom: Check Twitter feeds too often and update Twitter status way too much.
Solution: Allow yourself no more than 15 minutes every 3 hours to check your tweets. Be efficient in reading and answering them. Do not click around and read other people’s timelines, because it usually takes up tons of time without you even realizing it. In addition, I usually don’t read my Twitter DMs, mostly because my DM inbox is filled with spam. And we all know that accumulative spam eats away chunks of our time.
Issue #2
Symptom: Spend too much time checking your site’s traffic ranking
Solution: I know, I know. Traffic ranking is important. And it’s necessary to be able to monitor your traffic stats on an ongoing basis. However, you only need to check your traffic stats once or twice a day. That’s sufficient to tell you whether or not your strategy has worked. With all the tools available, such as Google Analytics, Alexa, Quancast, and numerous Wordpress plugins, you should at least perform an in-depth site traffic analysis everyday.
Issue #3
Symptom: Play with your Blackberry or iPhone (smartphones in general) too much.
Solution: Nowadays, most mobile devices come equipped with browsers and Internet access. This has made it massively convenient and available for people to access the Web when they are away from the computer. My solution for this is download audible books on your phone. Then you can plug yourself into something much more valuable and educational next time you are in subway or driving. Most importantly, Audible is not that addictive.
Issue #4
Symptom: Spend too much time with Facebook and Flickr photos
Solution: Social media has made sharing remarkably easier for everybody. As a result, we now can have a legitimate excuse to overstay at our friends’ Facebook photo pages. I used to watch those pictures and videos for hours on social networks such as Facebook or YouTube. After finally realizing hours had gone by without accomplishing anything, I now simply consciously avoid to do so. Trust me. If you don’t go there in the first place, there will be much less seduction for you to check out your friends’ photo albums.
Issue #5
Symptom: Check emails too many times a day
Solution: Email is not a new tool in the Web 2.0 age. What makes it such an indispensable tool is the fact that email has become a complete information aggregator because of what other social networks allow it to do. As an example, here is how I use my email:
- I receive an email every time somebody leaves a comment or ping on my blog
- I receive an email every time somebody submits an application to join the NYEBN group (powered on social media platform)
- I receive an email every time somebody makes a PayPal payment to me
- I receive an email every time my favorite blogs are updated (email RSS)
- I receive an email once a day from Google about the my favorite topics mentioned on the Internet(Google Alerts)
- I receive an email once a day from a Twitter client about the number of new followers I gained and old followers I lost
As a result, we must be able to manage our emails productively, meaning processing all the messages in your inbox in bulk is necessary. For me, I usually read all my emails at noon and in the evening when I got time. I try to focus on something else at other times no matter how many emails I’ve got (unless they are truly urgent).
Are these tips helpful? Do you have Internet addiction issues? If so, share with us how you overcome them in the comment area below.
