offline time | Words For Hire

Image by gniliep via Flickr

Written by Karen D. Swim

Happy Friday! I hope this has been a good week for everyone. I hit the pause button yesterday and enjoyed hanging out in the “real world.” It was nice to take a break on a day I would normally be working. The brief break validated two things: 1) I have spent far too much time of late on the computer and 2) people out there (you know in the rest of our world without an avatar) could care less about the issues that seem so important online!

My first clue came when I had an urge to tweet my activities. Admittedly these could have been by best tweets yet because real life has great material! However, I was surrounded by real people and in a daring move… I talked to them! No 140 character limit or need to @, dm or add a smiley. Now don’t get me wrong I am normally chatty and strike up conversations wherever I go, but this was Thursday in the middle of a work day.

I mentioned Twitter and Facebook a few times during the day and um no one cared. Seriously. There was no talk of analytics, trends, fail whales or LinkedIn’s new group policy. Because, apparently a large part of the real world just doesn’t care.

There is however, common ground. We all care about the things that matter – life (yea, suprisingly we are all pretty darn happy to wake up each day), health, family, career, balance, etc. Essentially many of the things that we tweet, kwip and plurk are the same things discussed in the neighborhood barber shop or the corner store. So, why I wondered are we often so polarized?

Those of us who are involved in social media and online work tend to forget that we still represent only a small percentage of the population. Many more people see online as primarily email. Our online experts are often unknown outside of cyberspace. Yet those that have made a name in the real world are known by all.

So, what did I learn? I learned to not take this all so seriously. I can stress about stats, polls and SEO or I can put it in perspective and simply enjoy the journey. I also learned that well, I need to get out more! I need more days where there is no purpose other than to just hang and let life happen.

Now, it’s your turn. How do you manage your online time? Have you ever felt the need to dial it down? Do your real world peeps share your online interests? Talk to me, because I’m back and I am interested! 😉

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