Go Amish and Tune Out Awhile

By TC Brown

Recently, I saw one of the dumbest things ever.  A guy jogging was yapping away on his cell phone. No emergency in sight and no dogs hot on his tail.

I also spied a couple in a restaurant who instead of having lively and interesting conversation – you know, sharing meaningful personal moments – they were separately tapping away on mobile devices.  Apparently this is the contemporary version of the song “Strangers in the Night.”

Recently, a study out of the UK noted that one in eight adults said their partner spends more time on their cell phone than talking to them.  More than 34 percent said they email or text during face-to-face conversations. 

And that’s just the phone!  Toss in laptops, desktops, notebook computers and all manner of mobile devices, and the amount of time we all spend staying connected is staggering.  Last year, Nielsen found that sites like Facebook and Twitter swallow up 22.7 percent of our time on the Web.  A study by comScore found that most of us spend at least 32 hours a month connected to the Internet.  I’m guessing it’s even higher now.

This all brings me to a radical thought – we need to unplug and be Amish for a day, or at least for a couple of hours once in awhile. 

All of these interconnected networks are like electronic crack. We do a hit and then find ourselves hypnotically going back again and again to get our next interactive “fix.”  Totally addictive.

Think not? Look at these revealing statistics:

·       One-half billion people log onto Facebook each day, collectively spending 700 billion minutes per month on the site.

·       Each month, 490 million unique users visit YouTube, generating 92 billion page views.

·       Every minute, people upload 3,000 images to photo site Flickr.

·       Twitter, which adds hundreds of thousands of users per day, averages 190 million tweets daily.

·       Google+ reached 10 million users in 16 days, setting new speed records for social network growth.

It might seem odd that this rant is coming from a guy who co-owns a social media communication company.  After all, it is clearer than ever that this “new media” is good for businesses.

No argument, the positive social medium influence on business is a good thing, and I’m happy for it. But so is taking an occasional break. Timothy Ferriss, author of The 4-Hour Workweek, recommends limiting email consumption and production, and even taking a one-week media fast.

Myself? I’m going to unplug just as soon as I finish and send out this blog, respond to all of the emails on my two accounts, check out the latest viral video, rearrange my photos on Flickr, do an Internet search for this odd skin rash, and . . . .

TC Brown is a partner in Webface, a communications and marketing company that can help you and your organization stay relevant in an ever-more interconnected world.