Before I get started, welcome to my blog, if you've not already been here before.
I've been ruminating for quite some time about my productivity levels and what influences I have in my life, and I've come to a somewhat startling realization. In running some time audits on my workflow, I found that large amounts of time that I thought was being spent doing productive things was actually being wasted on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. It seems that in addition to directly consuming my time, these social media sites also indirectly affect my performance through an addictive sort of attachment. This is problematic as I would like for my workflow to be as productive as possible and I would like to be able to get a large amount of work done on as many projects as possible. As such, I've decided that such distractions must be removed from my life entirely.
In addition to the (frightening) lack of productivity, I find that social media sites nowadays actually inhibit their users' friendly interactions. Instead of as it is with natural conversation, we find ourselves struggling against our devices to realistically portray our emotions to others. There is no possible way to electronically provide the same experience as talking to someone in person. Without crystal-clear sound and video with no lag, conversations are not the same as in person, and cannot be.
In order to prevent further loss of time, I'm going to be deactivating or removing both my Facebook and Twitter accounts, as well as any other social media accounts that I see as being time-consuming.
Now, I'm not getting rid of everything. I'm still keeping my Email address, my Google+ profile, and this Blog as a way of communicating with those who will remain on the other sites. By no means am I intending to completely avoid these sites, however one of the first projects I want to do is to write a Chrome Extension that blocks such sites, an extension that I hope to use extensively (no pun intended). The reason I am retaining the aforementioned accounts is that I believe that Google+ does not inhibit productivity and is actually somewhat helpful, whereas Facebook, Twitter, and such are directly directed at wasting my time. Blogs and Emails allow for communication to be longer and more thought-out before being posted, which enables ideas to steep before they are shared, resulting in a higher-quality throughput.
You may disagree with me. That's perfectly fine. I'm okay with people retaining their current online presence, but I hope that everyone realizes that this is a decision I'm making to prevent myself from being unproductive. I believe that I am addicted, one might say, to these social media sites and that I need to distance myself from them in order to be a more effective team member on the projects I'm currently working on and will continue to work on.
So, if you want to reach me after I deactivate or remove my accounts, you can email me at <kristofer.rye@gmail.com>. You can talk to me in person, but if you email me there then I can give you more information if you need to communicate more rapidly (i.e. over SMS). You can also "circle" my Google+ Profile, as that will be the only social network that I retain. You'll be able to reach me on GitHub and BitBucket as always.
In the future, I may return to these online sites once I've "de-toxed," in a way. This could be months or years down the road from now.
The planned date for the deletion of these accounts is Monday, 24 March, 2014.
TL;DR: I'm deleting accounts on 24 Mar 2014. Email me at the above address and/or circle my Google+ profile.
EDIT 0: I'll be editing this post with updates as progress is made.
EDIT 1: Tumblr is the first to go as of 23:00 tonight (I got tired of waiting). Others will wait for closure (archives must be obtained)
EDIT 2: Twitter is the second to go as of 22:30 tonight (I got tired of waiting).
EDIT 3: I realized that Facebook still has some value. As such, I have decided to keep it, however I am changing my password to an extremely long hexadecimal string and I am storing that in a file somewhere, then deleting all of my Facebook cookies. My plan is to check it only once every week, yet hold it open for the sake of all of the people with whom I communicate over Facebook.
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