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“Wow! That was quite some ride. It’s over now, thank goodness!”

Those were my thoughts after spending a few days in the hospital with pneumonia. It’s the same state of my mind I am experiencing now after deactivating my Twitter account.

Yep! Goodbye Twitter.

For a web developer to quit Twitter may seem like a terrible decision. No doubt many of my colleagues will think I’m nuts and must not appreciate the value that Twitter brings to the universe.

Admittedly, the decision was agonizing. In fact, it took a couple of months to make it. I reasoned back and forth the benefits of Twitter and how it really has become the ultimate forum for planet earth where every subject has thousands of active contributors and followers.

I followed three hashtags. #eecms #expressionengine #mycurrenttown

With the EE hashtags I kept a thumb on the pulse of the ExpressionEngine community! Just a few of the tweets topics that would stream across my consciousness included…

1. EE News
2. EE Support
3. New extension announcements
4. Ryan Irelan reminding us that the Wed. night EE chat was about to start.
5. Dan Benjamin announcing the latest EE podcast was going live.
6. Ryan Masuga complaining about the Devot-ee EE2 upgrade process. (sorry Ryan, 😊)

Yes, Twitter is incredibly powerful. Any subject, anytime, lots of comments!

As a web developer, it killed me to even consider abandoning this powerful resource. Following some of the big projects and names e.g., @zeldman, @jquery empowers one to keep up with the latest and greatest tools and techniques in this fast moving industry! Again, Twitter is like the ultimate forum. No need for moderators. Follow only the people and posts you’re interested in and ignore the rest. There is a kajillion people ready to make a comment!

The decision was excruciating! However, on the morning of Tues April 19 it was made, maybe in a moment of pure insanity or extreme clarity, I logged onto Twitter for the last time. It only took a few clicks before the Twitter system went into a self preservation mode and starting emphasizing how permanent my stupid decision was.

“Hold on cowboy! You just ‘accidentally’ clicked the deactivate account link.”

“We’re gonna need your password a few times and along the way we’re gonna remind you how great we are!”

“Hey stupid! You can’t do this. We’re TWITTER!”

Confirm, confirm, password, confirm, confirm, etc…

Finally! The account was closed. I turned the computer off and took the dog for a walk, needing some time to process what just happened.

Obviously, not everyone in the EE forums uses Twitter. For those that do, it can be a pretty demanding habit. I have counted two benefits for breaking it, and for this guy, the benefits have far outweighed the value of the resource.

Benefits of breaking the Twitter habit…

1. increased focus
2. time

The personal productivity book “Getting Things Done” by David Allen is a great resource. If you haven’t had a chance to read it, find the time!

In the book, one of the critical keys to personal productivity that David teaches is understanding how the human mind works. To recognize the mind has limits and realize it can only process one task optimally at a time. This isn’t because people don’t try hard! All of us task our minds to do more than one thing all the time…

Driving and texting.
Watching TV while our mate is trying to converse with us.
Doodling while talking on the phone.

Whenever we do more than one task at a time, something always suffers! (the driving, the conversation, the drawing)

The principal in this book served as the catalyst for my decision.

Although it has only been two days since I quit Twitter, already I have experienced increased focus and have been able to get more work done over the course of two days than I have for any other two day period in a very long while.

The second benefit only became apparent to me after the account was closed.

I had more time.

I didn’t realize how much time Twitter took. Maybe some are thinking “Twitter doesn’t take that much time”. “It’s just a tweet here and there”. “Follow less people” or simply “close the software and don’t use it for a while”.

Admittedly, Twitter itself may not take much time for a moderate user. However, the information that comes across ones consciousness DOES TAKE TIME! How?

Brandon Kelly just posted an update to Playa!
Firefox 4 is released!
Check out this screenshot of a plugin I’m working on.
Anybody want to beta test something for me?
Pia Toscano just got kicked off American Idol!
etc,

Who uses Twitter that doesn’t follow a link posted, respond to a comment made, view a picture referenced, read an article highlighted, watch a video posted? If interfaced with Twitter, simply put, it will cost time. Surprisingly, I didn’t recognize how much time I was spending until I escaped it. Now I have so much time I can write HUGE multi-paragraph forum posts that might be better suited for a blog.

Anyway, for me, it’s worth it!

time and focus > twitter

It’s doubtful that anyone will be motivated to read this long-winded post or make the same decision for the same reason. I just had this weird need to share my thoughts on the subject…

and my twitter account was closed.

This isn’t because people don’t try hard! All of us task our minds to do more than one thing all the time…

Driving and texting.

Please please please people, don’t do this!! Over here in the UK it’s illegal and for very good reason (unfortunately people still do it though).

I can’t understand anyone that does this. The human mind really can only concentrate properly on one thing at a time and when you are driving a car (basically a lethal weapon in the wrong hands) then you should be taking full awareness of the task at hand and not texting or chatting on the phone.

It was recently proven in a scientific experiment that it doesn’t matter if you are on a hands free unit or not it’s the actual action of having a conversation on the phone which causes the problems. They proved that your reactions are up to 50% slower when on the phone, hands free or not, so this is definitely not a good idea.

There I said it. People please take note! 😊

It’s doubtful that anyone will be motivated to read this long-winded post or make the same decision for the same reason. I just had this weird need to share my thoughts on the subject…

and my twitter account was closed.

I read it all and I applaud you for making a decision and sticking to it. Last year I had to stop reading Twitter as it just got too noisy for me and so I just started following a few hashtags instead of all the people I was actually following. Brought the noise down no end and helped save my sanity.

I can totally see why you went and did what you did though and I wish you the very best with everything. Don’t become a stranger though.

Best wishes,

Mark

This isn’t because people don’t try hard! All of us task our minds to do more than one thing all the time…

Driving and texting.

Please please please people, don’t do this!! Over here in the UK it’s illegal and for very good reason (unfortunately people still do it though).

I totally agree Mark. In fact, here in California it is also illegal and it seems everybody still does it. The state is considering an increase to the fines since it’s such a problem.

Personally, I wish they would impound peoples phones and only after paying a hefty impound fee would they get it back.

Last year I had to stop reading Twitter as it just got too noisy for me and so I just started following a few hashtags instead of all the people I was actually following. Brought the noise down no end and helped save my sanity.

Ditto here. Dropped Facebook for everyone except family. Dropped tweeting and limited to following tweeters with something useful to say.

The noise level dropped dramatically. Focus improved, productivity improved, attitude improved.

Downside?

I’m still waiting for it.

Whenever we do more than one task at a time, something always suffers!

Agreed completely. Know that you can still come here for news. The updates are on the blog and in the forum. I’m trying to get information in one place so you don’t HAVE to be on facebook and twitter.

I often turn twitter off completely while I work on Sprint items. I find I can do twice the work in half the time when I go “off grid.”

You’re not alone: You’re just brave. 😊

Definitely understand the issues that Twitter and Facebook could bring, making you think you have to answer everything in real-time (and wondering how you are going to get your work done at the same time!). I’m dabbling in social media and figuring out ways to use Facebook and Twitter to promote my design business, and what I found really helpful is scheduling tweets, something HootSuite and TweetDeck (among many others) offer. I can schedule interesting tweets in the morning that post all throughout the day and simply watch my mentions column if someone responded. This way i’m somewhat active on twitter but I don’t have to stare at it all day.

Also I’m one of those people that need to take a “micro-break” every hour or so so twitter helps with that. It can go crazy though: what used to really disrupted my thought process was any IM: AIM, GTalk, Skype, and so on. The windows on my screen annoyed me so much, and if you didn’t respond to them immediately the person IM’ing me would get upset. I had to turn that off (and facebook chat) asap!

I have an amazing idea for an anti-twitter web site…......anyone game?

Would need a good flash or mobile app developer….

What a giant step backwards Twitter is! Not to say it does not have it’s place in a ONE to many (celebrity, etc.) relationship, but to the rest of us it is just…..well, I’d rather not say it in a public forum!

I sat on an internet marketing panel last week with other “experts” and you should have seen the looks on their faces when I was not cheerleading Twitter as being the latest and the greatest in terms of marketing! I could have made a comedy sketch out of their side of the “debate”...

“But…hey, I can sit right here and do my twitter and open tweetdeck and twit and twitter….and then the tweets will twit and twitters will tweet”....

Well, that pretty much sums up their position!

This is the way I look at it. Since the very first day that the internet became commercial, MOST people don’t get it. They never have, and perhaps never will. That makes things much better for those who might have some idea of what is going on. Sadly, most internet “experts” went into snake oil, from MLM to SEO…and, hey, now that Google has taken action against the big bucks SEO guys (by deranking professionally SEOed sites), all that money and all those people need somewhere to go, right?

Ah, enter the new big job as “social media” director, a title I see popping up in many of my emails to my clients. The same companies that hesitated to spend 5K a year on REAL advertising or marketing, now have someone that costs them 100K a year tweeting about!

Well, that’s the way of the world.

Anyone who wants to understand “social media” should start with the fact that it is nothing new. It may have taken other forms (CB radio, IM, forums, guestbooks, email lists, usenet, etc. etc.), but it is not new!

Anyone in the “social media” field…..and I use that terms in quotes, because it would be like saying we are all in the “breathe air” field, should have a giant sign up above their desk with two famous terms in it….

1. THINK ( Thomas Watson, founder of IBM?)
2. Appropriate Technology (use what is right for the job, nothing more and nothing less).

Moreover, they should carefully consider a Koan which I will make up on the spot….
If everyone tweeted, then could everyone also read their tweets?

Anyone who wants to understand “social media” should start with the fact that it is nothing new. It may have taken other forms (CB radio, IM, forums, guestbooks, email lists, usenet, etc. etc.), but it is not new!

Well said!

Without a doubt something else will come along eventually, probably with a different badge, and marketeers will eventually jump on that as well 😊

I have an idea!

We’ll do it.

We’ll call it….....FRIENDSTER….......
:cheese:

He he, or even FIENDSTER? lol

And shall we be selling it for £2gazillion after 3 years?

All I can say is someday Groupon is going to look back and think about that 6 BILLION that Google was trying to hand to them!

:cheese:

FYI, the basic messages are probably contained here:
http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/226030/social_business_reality_check_move_beyond_the_hype.html

“Raise your hand if social media has transformed your business for the better. (If you actually work in the social media business, keep your hand down.)

My point here is simple: For every wild success story about a taco truck skyrocketing to fame or a pizza place making its name on Twitter, there are untold thousands of companies that followed the advice of overpriced social marketing gurus, invested crucial time and human resources into tweeting their hearts out, and ended up with nothing to show for it.”

His summary is also accurate, IMHO….

“The takeaway here: Rather than pay someone just to think up clever 140-character messages throughout the day, sit them in front of some social media monitoring software and have them directly engage the people who are already talking about you. Meanwhile, take the opportunity to gather and understand this feedback about your brand.

And, as Michael Fauscette so wisely points out, make sure you’ve trained that person to hold up your end of the dialogue, wherever it may go. A compassionate, savvy communicator who understands and respects the power of social business can turn outspoken critics into raving fans. An overworked assistant who has been saddled with social media duties without the benefit of adequate training or resources can turn outspoken critics into mortal enemies.”

I did the same with Facebook awhile back. Probably deactivated my account 4 times and always find myself reactivating again.

I understand why you deactivated, and for me I have realized that deactivating an account does not work. I think it it all comes down to self control. TV is a distraction, a magazine or newspaper, talking on the phone too much, etc. It’s all about control and focus and managing time in my opinion. A time for leisure and a time for work.

I did the same with Facebook awhile back. Probably deactivated my account 4 times and always find myself reactivating again.

I understand why you deactivated, and for me I have realized that deactivating an account does not work. I think it it all comes down to self control. TV is a distraction, a magazine or newspaper, talking on the phone too much, etc. It’s all about control and focus and managing time in my opinion. A time for leisure and a time for work.

Yeah, I don’t use Facebook and never have. Regarding Twitter, deactivating an account is pretty final as they don’t provide a way to reactivate at this time.

So… back on Twitter yet? 😊 Any urge to sign up?