Back from a Twitter holiday
This week I came back to Twitter after going on hiatus since April. A few weeks back my friend Aric asked me if it was some sort of experiment. I laughed. I’m not that smart, so no.
Then I was reading something another friend wrote about why she wasn’t on Twitter. She said she didn’t have time for it. I’ve always been offended by that kind of response because it assumes that those who are on have all the time in the world. It’s an excuse I’ve heard for years from people who don’t volunteer. Truth is people will always make time for the things that are important to them.
It wasn’t about time
So then it got me to thinking about why I took my “holiday.” I appreciate and understand the value of social media, but I knew I needed a change. It was partly the appeal of the “tension” that Julien Smith wrote about. I had three major deadlines to meet and it’s not that I couldn’t find the time to tweet because there were a lot of other things I could have cut out but didn’t. My decision actually originated from a conversation I blogged about before with Dr. Roberta Bondar in regards to social media and critical thought. I felt at the time that my critical thought was inhibited because I couldn’t focus my attention in one area for an extended period of time.
The Internet changes your brain
Then I saw an interview on The Colbert Report (June 30, 2010) with Nicholas Carr, author of The Shallows: Mind, Memory and Media in an Age of Instant Information. When I saw the interview, I could relate. I needed to get into a mode of more contemplative thought to get my academic writing done.
Since the Comedy Network hasn’t posted the June 30 episode (maybe because of Canada Day) here’s another interview I caught on on CBC’s The Current (July 2, 2010, Part 2, Internet Dumbing)
Following the piece is an interview with critic Matthew Ingram, writer at GigaOm.
There’s something to be said about immersing yourself in a topic and taking the time to get that deep level of understanding. It’s not impossible on the web, but one has to understand the environment and not get caught up in the instant gratification of moving from one thing to another. (And it happens without even realizing it.) For me, the relief was welcome and gave me a chance to refocus – and to appreciate social media once again, but from a less shallow perspective.
