An Experiment: Twitterless September
A while ago, Debbi Michiko Florence blogged about Online Time Management. Her post got me thinking, and I decided it was time to get rid of my GoodReads account. It also started me wondering about what I really need and enjoy about social media, and I made one more decision.
I’m going Twitterless in September.
I’ve talked a few times about what I do and don’t like about Twitter. As an interface, I am just not crazy about it–I prefer the threaded conversations on Facebook. Also, I don’t like that I can so easily be followed spammers. For whatever reason, it seems like that happens more frequently than on Facebook, and I feel like I have to do more monitoring of it on Twitter. Which, frankly, I can do without. I do think I get more information about the publishing biz–more links to agent and editor and other industry blogs, and this is important to me. And, of course, there are people on Twitter that I love “talking to,” who just aren’t on Facebook.
If any of those people want to find me on Facebook, please do!
So I’m not at all sure that this coming month will be anything but an experiment. I’m not promising myself I’ll stay off, or making any other projections about what will happen. I’m thinking that maybe I’ll end up using it mostly as that industry resource and be more of an observer/listener than an active participant, but… I’m not sure how much time staying off Twitter will save me, I’m not sure if staying away will help me focus more and use my time more efficiently. I know I’ll have withdrawal the first few days. After that, who knows? For me, it’s a matter of looking at the fact that I’m using multiple social-media tools (like so many of us) and just wondering whether I really need to or want to.
Here’s to finding out.
One month. 30 days.
I can do this.
And, of course, you’ll hear from me at the end of the month about how it went. Meanwhile, I’ll see you here or on Facebook or at your blogs. Happy September!
beckylevine.com 
9 Comments
Good luck! I can’t wait to hear how it goes. I was off twitter for most of the summer since I was in Italy. It wasn’t very difficult to get back into the conversation.
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That’s what I figure. Twitter always makes me feel like I’m missing things, anyway–so I don’t think, IF I go back, that I’ll feel very different.
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So cool. I’ve been thinking about going without fb for Sept! I don’t do twitter, even though I’m technically on there. I think I will go to once every third day on fb (or something like that…see? I’m slipping already).
Good luck. Can’t wait to hear about it.
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I love Facebook. I can see myself taking time off if I had a looming deadline that was causing me problems, and I probably need to do a little more structuring of my time there, but I don’t want to leave. 🙂
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I think I might actually make September the month I make an appearance on Twitter. Seems I have the account, collect friends, then never have anything to say. I just can’t get the hang of it, and I’ve had the account 2 years.
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Ships that pass…! 🙂
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GO for it, Becky. As for me, I decided to go “twitterless” a long time ago— I never joined. Too many social media distractions make less time to write!
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I didn’t feel like that when I started out. But now I feel like backing up just a bit. We’ll see how it goes!
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[…] way back at the start of the month, I decided to try an experiment–to go all September without using Twitter. And, look, here we are at the end of that same […]
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