Results of Week One

Well, week one is over and I’ve learned a lot about my Internet use.

1. I am an integrated user. While I never spend hours on one thing, I am always connected and often bouncing around between programs. It is not abnormal to find me surfing the web, streaming Netflix on my TV, and texting on my iPhone. However, five minutes here and 30 seconds there adds up.

2. My social media use tends to correlate with my stress level. I ranked my perceived stress level every morning on a scale of 1-5, 5 being extremely stressed. If you will notice in the graphs, the days were I felt extremely stressed in the morning, where also the days I used social media the most. Also, seemingly unrelated, were the days I received the most email. My internet use stayed pretty consistent, but I seemed to turn more to social media. Is this a coping mechanism to deal with the stress, or simply a search for support? This is something I plan on keeping my eye on in the coming weeks.

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Week One Almost Done

Friday will conclude my first week of tracking my media use. It’s been interesting. Without giving too much way, it has been a struggle to keep up with. While I am never on the internet for a long period of time, I find myself continuously connected to the web with 30 seconds here and 10 seconds there. When I am not on the internet, I am thinking about the internet.

I started this project thinking I was not an addict, but now I am not so sure. Twitter was down for about an hour a few days ago and I was shocked at my response. I became nervous and hyper-focused on what I wanted to tweet. It really bothered me. I felt disconnected and alone. That sounds like an addict to me.

Enjoy this semi-humors article: Top Ten Signs You Are Addicted to Twitter.

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Integrated User

I’ve been logging my media use and have found it to be difficult. Before paying attention, I considered myself to be a segmented user. In reality, I am very integrated in my media use. I often operate in a multi-window browser bouncing along between Facebook, Twitter, email, and other frivolous web searches. This bouncing is making it difficult to accurately track my Internet use. I am looking for programs to help me with this task. If you have a great program, let me know!

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Social Media Addict Map

Addicted to social media? Join Social Media Addicts Anonymous by placing a pin in your location and giving us your first name. Click here to add to the map.



View Social Media Addicts in a larger map

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Entry Exam

Every study needs a place to start; so, today I took an entry exam. I will be taking these every week before evaluating my weekly media usage.

1. How many hours a day do you perceive you are on the Internet? 5 hours

2. How many of those hours are on the computer? 4.5 hours Cell phone? .5 hours

3. How many hours a day do you communicate with people through the Internet? 2 hours Phone? 1 hour Face-to-Face? 5 hours

4. What social networking tools do you use and how many hours a day do you spend on them?

Facebook: 1 hour
Twitter: 1 hour
Email: 2 hours
Ping: 15 minutes

5. Rate the following on the scale 1- None, 2- Little, 3- Average, 4- A Lot, 5- Too Much

Daily Stress Level: 4
Average Amount of Sleep: 3
Daily Internet Usage: 4
Daily Connections via Internet: 3
Quality of Connections via Internet: 2
Daily Connections via Phone: 3
Quality of Connections via Phone: 3
Daily Connections in Person: 3
Quality of Connections in Person: 2

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(dis) con - what?

The Question: With the addition of social media to our everyday lives, are we more connected to each other or are we simply (dis)connected?

The Idea: Follow this question down the rabbit hole in search of an answer.

The Challenge: Give up social media for one month and see if you become more connected or simple disconnected.

Are we as a society addicted to social media? Could we even survive without it? Is there a life beyond facebook, twitter, and myspace?

I often find myself lost in a sea of information. With everything vying for my attention, I am stressed out. This made me think, is everyone else as stressed and tired as I am?

We are spending more time connecting than ever before. According to Nielsen the use of social media is up by 82% from last year. Grandparents are now facebooking their grandchildren. Employers are hiring through LinkedIn profiles. I’ll admit it; I’ve sent my husband an instant message while we are in the same room. Ok, more than once. Is all this viral noise the reason I can’t sleep at night? Am I really busy or am I just simply lost in cyber space?

So, how does one come to grips with these radical changes in our lifestyle? As a documentary filmmaker, my instinct is to make a movie, and that is what I am here to do.

For the next year I will research, interview and immerse my life in this topic. While doing this, I will keep a diary of my personal social media consumption and post it here weekly for the entire world to see. (What am I getting myself into?) This is all leading up to May 2011 when I will officially unplug myself (and a few brave followers) for 30 days.

Will the world come to an end? Will everyone I know shun me? Will life ever be the same?

So it is you, social networking elite, which I proudly invite to follow me for the next year and half as I take this journey. I invite you to participate in this process and become a part of the film. Be patient the next couple of weeks as my production team and I begin to build all the elements of this project. It is our plan to spark a viral discussion as we chronicle this journey.

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