Creating vs Consuming Content

Something I’ve been working on lately, which is admittedly only half the reason I’ve been so bad at social media lately, is focusing on creative output rather than on just consuming what others are doing. It’s really hard for me, to break out of the habit of cruising from one social media site to another, from one RSS feed to another blog, just reading and consuming everything that’s out there.

I remember a few years ago, when I first gave serious writing a try, that was my preferred method of procrastination. I could head to a coffee shop with my laptop, intent on a little writing time, and spend an hour on Facebook, a couple hours on Google Reader (RIP), and round up my work time on a few of my favorite silly blogs. I never ended up writing much. 

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Quitting Facebook Without Quitting Facebook

Facebook is a time suck. And it’s pointless. And you can find a lot of criticism, and reasons to hate it, and reasons to quit, online. Some users feel their self esteem struggle when they use it. Some use it because of low self esteem. Some use it out of boredom, for hours every day, and never get anything out of it. So quit it, right?

‘But wait’, I hear you saying! ‘I use Facebook to stay in touch with people! Without it, people might forget to invite me to things, or maybe they’d forget I exist entirely!’ Continue reading


Social Media Gurus

Everyone knows a social media guru. A social media guru is someone who was an early-ish adopter of Twitter, who started calling themselves a guru one day and somehow people started accepting it. (Or at least, nobody called them out on it.) You don’t have to have any special skills or training to be a guru; you just have to tweet mundane things every so often and occasionally tweet about tweeting. Continue reading


Twitter and personal privacy

This is the third post in my Twitter for Regular People series.

One thing that has always surprised me about Twitter is that so many of its users have no filter when it comes to what they tweet. Users tweet about their work lives, friendships, relationships, sex lives, and personal health issues all in one space. Continue reading


Using Twitter to Solve Your Problems

This is the second post in my Twitter for Regular People series.

One of the nicest surprises I’ve encountered as a consumer of social media is this: You can use Twitter to get what you want.

Anyone can publish to the general public. In the past, it was much harder to express dissatisfaction with a company with which you do business. But today, you can use social media – Twitter, in particular – to deal with problems you experience, and you can get real results. Continue reading