It’s been almost a month since I embarked on a cyber social experiment. The experiment’s main goal was to abstain from using Twitter for one full week to see if I was more productive or not. I started the experiment by simply tweeting the following message on September 9, 2008 at 9:32pm.
I’m going to be performing a social experiment. Will cutting off Twitter for 1 week make me more productive? I’ll let you know in 7 days 8^)
A blog post followed that message 48 hours later explaining the conditions of the experiment. After I posted that message on twitter, I shut off all cell phone notifications and didn’t load Twitter up 7 days even though I originally allowed myself to do it 3 times a day. I thought loading it up even once was like sneaking a cupcake after each meal while on a strict diet.
During my Twitter-less week, I did a lot. I got more done at work with less interruptions. Both at home and at work my cell phone vibrating with a new text message wasn’t constantly bothering me. Also while at home I wasn’t constantly feeling the need to reload Twitter to see what everyone was up to. After 3 days of this it really hit home that I was reading about what others were doing and spending more time tweeting about what I was doing than actually doing things. This was a lot of wasted time and productivity. For instance, during my week off I completely rearranged and rewired the living room, shopped and purchased a new car for my wife, spent less time in from of a computer screen literally doing nothing, started organizing our attic, and decorated for Halloween.
I’m sure you asking why I wouldn’t normally do those things if I was using Twitter the way I was before the experiment. The thing is, I would have gotten them done, but they would have been wrought with interruptions and delays. For instance, I was able to literally work or a solid 6 hours one day on the living room, without so much as a text message or Twitterrific chirping from the computer room. I was getting so much done without interruptions, that I continued my experiment for almost another few days after my original end date. My first post experiment tweet did not happen until the evening of September 21, 2008. Following that, it took another 4 days for me to post again, and this time it was a link to picture of Jess’s new car. I really didn’t start using Twitter again until September 26, 2008, and when I did decide to use it again, it was with a set of newly self-imposed rules.
My rules for my Twitter use are as follows:
1) I only check Twitter when I am not doing anything.
2) I only can have 2 people’s tweets going to my cell phone at any given time. Currently, this is my wife and Leo Laporte for TWiT updates.
3) I will only tweet from my cell phone when I am not doing anything. No longer will I stop or postpone the activity I am about to tweet about for the sake of tweeting. My case in point is my trip to the Renaissance Faire. I tweeted when we were leaving the house, and when we left the Faire. I never tweeted while there.
4) I can only use my web browser to check Twitter. No more using 3rd party programs like Twitterrific that update every few minutes.
To someone who doesn’t use Twitter, this all must sound like some sort of post addiction rant. In a way, it kind of is. I have what can be described as an ‘obsessive personality’. When I find something I like, I latch onto it for dear life. Twitter seemed to feed that monster something fierce.
So in the end, was my experiment a success? Did I find the answers I originally sought out? I would have to say ‘yes’ to both questions. I now use Twitter in a totally different fashion, and have come to appreciate it for what it should be used for – micro blogging. In the absence of Twitter, I found myself blogging a lot more. I had to remember that this is what I used to do before Twitter, and it should be what I continue to do with Twitter. The one thing I have changed slightly is now I log all my tweets from everyday on my blog, but they are not displayed for my readers. I like to think of this as a hidden archive for me to look through one day.
In the end, I have learned that Twitter is like all the finest things in life – great in moderation.
