Social Media Addiction

It’s annoying isn’t it, you log into Facebook, Twitter or Linked in to do one thing and 10 minutes  later you’ve either completely forgotten what you logged in for or you’ve only just remembered it after getting lost in the distraction.

I have to admit I’m easily distracted online I would almost say I have Social Media ADHD (Attention deficity hyperactivity disorder). The online world responds to my every thought pulse, every “I must do X”, every “let me see if so and so is online”, every “oh yeah I remembered I was supposed to get back to so and so”. It’s a bit like an addiction. My mind loves being busy my brain’s synapses firing with every action that I can get done online. The problem is that is unproductive and I finish wondering where my time went.
Yes I’ve read Getting Things Done and I’ve done Mission Control, so I know how not to distract myself and do switch off my wifi connection when I need to focus. This has definitely helped. However what happens when you need to use LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook it’s an online activity? When I’m logged in it gives me the opportunity to catch up on all the things that I haven’t done, there are messages to respond to, invitations to accept. It’s the equivalent of another email inbox.
So I’ve created 3 habits to deal with social media use:

  1. Batch up your social media time: Treat social media time like email time. Have a separate time slot where you check social media. This can be after your email time or a separate occasion. You’ll probably have some social media related email notifications in your email inbox, so if you process email and social media at different times, Flag or set up automatic diverts to different mail folders so that all social media messages are in the same folder. You can have a folder for each platform or one social media folder. I have a separate LinkedIn folder while Facebook and Twitter stay in my Junk folder. (I do this because I check Facebook frequently so don’t need any of the notifications and it’s easier when I know they’ll be deleted automatically in the junk folder.)
  2. Be Intentional: Have in mind an intention for what you’re online for? Is it important or are you just distracting yourself? If you need to write it down on a list then do so, it may sound basic but when you have a lot to do it can be easy to forget the small things. You can turn off any chat facilities on Facebook to keep you from more distraction.
  3. Have a productivity timer: Set a timer to go off for 5 or 10 minutes while you’re online. This helps you know how long you are spending online and keeps you aware of how time drifts. It also serves as a reminder of what you came to do. When your timer goes off, if you haven’t done the number one thing you came online to do, then do it. Then if you need to you can spend time doing other Social Media stuff.
    The last tip has saved me a lot of time. For example I went online to do some research on LinkedIn and make some new connections, I took about 40 min but each time my timer went off, I remembered what I was online to do and I took a conscious decision to spend more time on LinkedIn. If I didn’t have this I’d spend twice as much time as I do now.