That sounds like me when I first set up a MySpace account. Eventually I lost interested, thank heavens, but I’ve resisted doing any other social networking sites for fear of a similar phenomenon. Blogging and reading my favorite is quite enough of a distraction, thank you very much!

By the way, my email automatically downloads every 5 minutes, too. Sometimes I think that’s half my problem. I’ve actually had to close down my email program before so that I can get my work done…

lately, I've had an increase of "followers" but not sure why…lawd!

For me, the novelty wears off after about 2 weeks. Now I usually Twitter about 3 times a day–once in the morning, once during my son’s afternoon nap and once late at night. Same with Facebook and blogging. That works well for me. It keeps me plugged into the social networking scene, but I can still get my work done.

Every once in a while I’ll get caught up in Twittering or Facebook stalking (yes, they do call it stalking) and waste a day or two. But when that happens, I take a few days away and do something entirely non-Internet related…Like that ancient and forgotten pastime called reading! LOL!

Some people probably should never use Twitter, Facebook, etc., because it is so easy to become obsessed. Heck, it was designed that way! But it is entirely possible to have a (somewhat) healthy relationship with Twitter. I’ve met a lot of great people through the website so far, so I think it certainly has its benefits. You just have to develop the discipline over time. Hope this helps!

I’ll keep you guys informed on my Twitter experiment so as not to misrepresent the technology completely. But at this moment, I’m seeing my time frittered away (and yes, this is my fault). I told you before – I’m weak. Technology brings me gloriously and painfully to my knees.

If you switch from IE to Google Chrome as your browser then you’ll save a few tenths of a second on every page download, or even up to one second on some pages(Chrome is way faster!)

So over the course of your day, with the accumulated Tweets, you’ll have *saved* perhaps 30 seconds. Now that’s not a much, but over the course of a week, that’s a few minutes, and over the course of a year it is probably an hour. And in a decade you’ll have saved a full work day.

And with that extra work day, just think of all the additional writing that could be accomplished. Of course there might be a few tweets chiming in during that extra time.

This is the same reasoning I use when shopping at Costco. I think to myself, sure I don’t need a 50 gallon drum of soy sauce right now, nor the 24 pack of electric tooth brushes, but over time it will really save me a ton of money. And I end up spending $100 when all I needed was a loaf of bread.

OK, so maybe this is just a partial solution…

P.S. Much of this was tongue-in-cheek, but Chrome is actually way faster than IE.

P.P.S. Your post is very, very helpful because I’ve been debating whether or not to jump into the Twitter deep end. Thanks!

I keep my phone off when I work. I don’t get interrupted by emails — I hop on and off when I take breaks in the work.

I can’t stand interruptions when I’m writing. Heck, someone slams a door down the hall and I have a fit.

I need huge swaths of UNINTERRUPTED work time to do my work well, and Twitter just seems like a distraction encouraging ADHD-like behaviour.

I’m glad it works for some people, I just don’t think it’s for me.

I can’t wrap up that much of my time and identity in other people.