Social media exhaustion

Mark Schaefer

16 years ago

I take my first sip of fresh-brewed coffee and sit down in front of my computer for my 15 minutes of morning social media updating.

Blog reader. Let’s see what happened over the weekend … 328 new relevant articles. Where to even begin? I don’t.

On to Blogger. Need to finish an article, but when I add a photograph, all the spacing between paragraphs goes wacky, like soldiers breaking ranks. Damn. How many times have I formatted this thing?

Check Twitter. Ten new followers. Cool. Wait … nine of the avatars are people offering to help me get rich quick. Block … block … ummm … why are these folks still showing up on my list? Dreaded Twitter “whale of death” plops itself down in the middle of my screen. Too much traffic. Twitter down for the count.

Linked-in … 398 new discussions on the In eMarketing Forum. I can’t begin to wade through the snake oil to see if something meaningful is hiding in there.

Forget it. Go to email. 112 messages overnight. Quick scan shows:

Twelve e-newsletters
Eleven free social media webinars
Ten spammers
Nine blog comments to be moderated
Seven tweet-ups
Six Google alerts
Five new Linked-In requests
Four industry alerts
Three Facebook friend requests
Two news alerts
… and a partridge in a pear tree.

Social media has hijacked my morning. This new “free” channel is soaking up something more precious than money – time. I feel it sucking me under.

Some pundits claim you can manage a social media lifestyle in 15-30 minutes a day, but I don’t know how you can effectively participate in even a modest global conversation in that timeframe.

Help! How are you dealing with the increasing time requirements of social media? What are you doing to discipline yourself while providing meaningful engagement?

Tomorrow: A cure for social media exhaustion — digital de-tox?

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