Posted by Alex on 18 Feb, 2011 in Lifenotes | 0 comments
Well, it’s been a couple of months since I returned to Facebook & Twitter after my one-month hiatus (
plan here,
results here). Time to reflect on where I’m at now with my social network usage. As you may have guessed from the title & image, it’s not going too well.
I am completely, hopelessly addicted to Facebook. I check it several times a day, eagerly checking for new notifications or comments in response to my contributions. The “twitchiness” of checking email, Twitter & Facebook several times a day is back. One of my conclusions was that Facebook has a value and that I miss it when I’m not there, and I fear that now I’ve given myself “permission” to go on Facebook, I’ve let myself get sucked in. I realize now that Facebook is designed to be addictive. Seeing the “Likes” on your posts is like popping pills that give you an amphetamine rush. The stream of new “notifications” is an intravenous drip delivering compliments and ego strokes directly into your psyche.
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Posted by Alex on 25 Nov, 2010 in Lifenotes | 0 comments
As you know, I'm off Facebook and Twitter this month. But I'm still blogging. One of my blogs, posterous, has this handy feature where it automatically shares post links across my social networks.
But it's not supposed to do it automatically. However, I'm pretty sure, anecdotally, that it did retweet
this post.
So I edited the settings and I thought I'd fixed it. But I just did some more blogging today and yesterday, and judging by the number of viewers Posterous reports on
this post, I think I may be still doing so. I don't want to go on Facebook or Twitter to check (strictly no access!) so I thought I'd abuse this apparent defect to make sure anyone following my Facebook or Twitter understands that I am not actually using those services this month, it's just the wiring of the tubes!
Posted by Alex on 31 Oct, 2010 in Lifenotes | 0 comments
If you read my last post you’ll know I’m taking a break from social media for a month. That post explained the general reasons why.
In this post I’ll add a little more detail on what exactly I’m doing, and how.
Here’s the things I’m doing for November..
- Blocking my computers from accessing Facebook or Twitter.
- Turning off all Facebook and Twitter alerts on my email and on my phone.
- Deleting all Facebook or Twitter-related apps on my iPhone and iPad.
- Turning off and putting away my Chumby.
- Unlink Twitter from Flipboard, sobeeslite and other news apps.
- Turning off NutshellMail and Twilert, two services I use which send Twitter and Facebook updates to my inbox.
- Disabling Google Alerts, Slashdot newsletters, and any other regular emails that arrive in my inbox.
- Turning off Google Buzz within Gmail (I can’t disable it completely without deleting my Google Profile).
- Disable all notifications (including email and IM) on my iPhone and iPad.
- Disabling anything else that pops up early in November that I might have forgotten about that seems like a regular notification or distraction.
2-10 are all fairly straightforward.
1 is a little more interesting.
The solution I am going for is to edit the hosts file on my computer (/etc/hosts on the Mac), and add an entry which remaps
twitter.com and
facebook.com to different addresses – probably google news and my blog respectively). As of yet I haven’t found a way to do this on the iPad or iPhone so I may just need to rely on willpower there… Unless anyone has any suggestions?
[To read the follow up to this post, reflecting on the experience, go here.]
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Posted by Alex on 31 Oct, 2010 in Lifenotes | 2 comments
[To read the follow up to this post, reflecting on the experience,
go here.]
I’ve decided to do something unusual for November. For the whole month I’m going to give up Facebook, Twitter and a few associated “short update” type services. But I’ll be back on December 1st. Pointless? I don’t think so. Allow me to explain my thinking…
I’ve been on Facebook for five or six years now I guess. And that whole time I’ve hated Facebook – their lack of respect for personal privacy, their blatant commercialism, the way they abuse you and use your friends against you (I wrote a whole
blog post about that). But I’ve never left. Because, well, my friends are on there. And now I’m living across the pond from most of my friends, those relationships are more important than ever. So I can’t leave Facebook altogether, it would leave me too isolated – in fact that’s my only contact with many friends.
I realised that this is unhealthy. Facebook encourages a very shallow level of friendship – little ego strokes with Like buttons and comments on each others profiles, lazy status updates to everyone instead of picking up the phone. It’s damaging the quality of the relationships I do have, because it makes me feel connected even when I’m not at all really.
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Posted by Alex on 28 Jul, 2010 in Lifenotes | 0 comments
It being summer we tend to have the back door open and next door’s
cat, which we have christened Smokey since we don’t know her real
name, just loves to wander in and make herself at home. She loves to
come and rub against our legs or get a bit of attention. I guess when
the owner is out. I suppose for a cat, they just see it as all one
home, they probably don’t distinguish between apartments!
Makes me want a cat of my own. Still, I suppose we kind of have one
now, without any of the hassles of looking after it!
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Posted by Alex on 16 Apr, 2010 in Lifenotes | 1 comment
(Video temporarily disabled as it kept autoplaying – visit
this link to see the video) via
justin.tvAt Twitter’s first developer conference, Chirp, Brady Forrest ran a special version of Ignite – the conference we ran an instance of in Montreal – Ignite Chirp.
As part of that event they had a special round of Powerpoint Karaoke – the geek sport where you present using slides you’ve never seen before.
Using decks first created by Pete Taylor and I for Bitnorth 09, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone and SXSW Battledecks guru Anil Dash gave entertaining freestyle presentations. And I even got a shout out by name from Brady the organizer – woo-hoo! Shame he didn’t mention Pete, who did the bulk of the work. But still – awesome to have Internet celebrities using our decks!
You can download the full 16 decks here.
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