Information overload....

Do you ever feel like sometimes there is just too much to do?

Facebook, Twitter, sms, work email, personal email, phone calls, letters, junk mail, tv, magazines, books, the list is endless.

I wonder if its possible to suffer from information overload?

With all the things in life that need tending; the garden, the washing and ironing, friendships, the gym, spiritual practice, reading magazines, learning new skills, drawing and the ever amounting array of things I would like to achieve, how do I find the time when I am constantly plugged in to all these things?

Today, I am planning on resigning from my job, I have been here 4 months, but I cant take it any more.

The lack of creativity in this company is astounding. Considering our core product is creative media, I really am struggling to understand where this company went wrong.

Bebo recently went under, sinking to the bottom of the internet grave yard like a gunshot social media gangster with blocks on it's feet. Deep down to the bottom of the sea to sleep with the fishes.

This company was young, creative and bursting with ideas, it rose to fame in the last 5 years, but is now destined to be cut off and shut down.

According to figures from ComScore, Bebo's global unique visitors in February 2010 totalled 12.8 million, down 45% on February 2009. Facebook had 462 million visitors, MySpace nearly 110 million, and Twitter 69.5 million.

What went wrong? Being brought by a global corporation tarnished the cooler-than-thou image of an independent start-up that was particularly popular in school playgrounds. Aggressive expansion by Facebook also played a part.

Like most social networking sites, Bebo also benefited from a novelty factor that can disappear as quickly as it emerges. News Corp, the media conglomerate controlled by Rupert Murdoch, bought MySpace for $580m in 2005, only to watch its appeal diminish along with its value as it loaded the site with adverts.

ITV took a gamble on another UK start up, Friends Reunited, paying £120m in the same year, only to sell it at a huge loss last year.

Company insiders criticise AOL for failing to invest in Bebo, and point out that an acquisition by a corporate giant tends to stifle creativity. That may hide a more uncomfortable truth, however, which can make a mockery of the savviest owners. Social networking sites are businesses based on the fickle behaviour of internet users, who are free to move on to the next site when a competitor emerges and are offered few reasons to stick with their existing site. In that sense, Bebo was a fad.

It may not have fallen into the trap of letting naked commercialisation scare its teenage users away, but nor did it evolve in the manner that many of its competitors did.

Facebook is used by adults as well as children. Much of Twitter's power, influence – and likely longevity – derives from the fact it has become a professional tool, rather than an online outlet for gossip posted by its users.

Start-ups rarely fare well when they are taken under the wing of a bureaucratic corporate parent, and Bebo may also have suffered by hitching its wagon to AOL, a business that has itself seen better days.

It is owned by Time Warner, an American media giant that owns CNN, Time magazine and a host of other assets, but the $162bn deal that brought AOL and Time together is now regarded as one of the most disastrous in corporate history.

Buying Bebo was an attempt to build on AOL's status as the world's first internet provider by bolting on a new audience, but internet users are notoriously promiscuous.

For Bebo's young users, the site turned out to be the online equivalent of a teenage crush – intense while it lasted, but it didn't last…

A recap on the disconnection of facebook.

Months later and I am still connected to the system. After several attempts to de-activate my facebook account, days later I find my self longing to see what "my friends" are up to?

How am I going to do this? When I am not on it, I feel like I am missing out, and missing out the fun... :(

I dont know what to do?

I find it hard to meet people in London, and I guess I use it like that, and its nice to be connected to so many people if you ever need something you gotta just ask.

Anyone can help, I would appreciate it.

The day I commited suicide

It is Saturday 22nd of March 2008. The day I died. Yes ladies and gentlemen of the jury, this is the day I committed Facebook Suicide.

It took all of 20 seconds, I hit the account button and then hit on de-activate account and then sent the email asking for all my content to be removed.

I lay on the floor gasping my last breath as the mini-feed gently drip, drip, drip, dripped in the background then it was gone, a distant echo and a defining silence, I began to wonder what I would do, my heart raced and my brow wrinkled.

Am I free, is it that easy? If only i could get rid of msn messenger, email, cell phones, computers, and run away to a distant land where I can be at one with nature, the earth and other human beings.

Change needs to happen, London life has trapped me, I feel I can not breath any more.

My job has become a waste and a disappointment, but I feel a fire inside me a designer, ready to become a graphic designer of extraordinary proportions, I know I have the power with in me, I just wish I could let it out.

If you have a cure for procrastination, please let me know, I think it would save my life.

Today things have been turned upside down, something has shifted and I found something else to think about... how it happened I do not know, all I know is that it shifted.

I stop, listen for the drip, drip, drip, it's gone, it is silent.

I am alone.

Not going that well

Hello World.

A week has gone by and I have found my self back on Facebook . Things seem to have continued in the same vain as before, I have found my self compulsively checking it every so often, at work.

I have found if I have a reason I check it even more, a met someone at the movies the other night who I quite liked and I kept checking my Facebook , checking for a reply for their message, it wasnt good as I kept thinking about it.

The drip, drip, drip of the mini-feed kept calling me, the subtle call and lure of the digital slot machine.

I wonder if it was such a good idea to go back on to the system? Maybe I am just one of those people where my only healing from an addiction is to cut it out completely?

All or nothing?

What are your thoughts on this? Write to me and tell me about your experiences. How do you manage to limit your msn messenger time, Facebook and other dating and chat sites? Do you feel like these sites take over your free time?

I do think sometimes its nice to sit and chat to people, but wasting time is a different story, when you have a list a mile long of other important things to do, like drawing, washing, tidying up!

I do think I will continue to try wean my self off this, but during my week off from Facebook , I felt I was disconnected and isolated, there was definitely an overwhelming sense of being with-out something.

I do believe it is connected to my need to feel connected to other people, something I am planning on tackeling in the next few months, with maybe some kind of therapy or assistance from a skilled professional.

I want to be able to live my life and not rely on digital technology to feel close to people.

The End of Day 4

I think its the end of day 4. Not sure, I just woke up at 6:30am.

Some strange nightmare, but I can't go back to sleep, oh well.

So its been 4 days and no Facebook, I've really wanted to go back, but I havent.

Only 3 days to go, can I do it?

How is your facebook addiction coming along?

The End of Day 2

Welcome. It is the end of day 2 and I have successfully stayed away from Facebook, msn.
I have however partaken in a bit of internet dating, but I think thats going to have to come under the same banner of banned sites. I wasted at least 2 hours tonight surfing, when I could have been drawing!

I have always been passionate about drawing, but never really given my self the time, primarily because ive been so busy distracting my self with crap.

Tomorrow is a new day, I hope to keep away and not faulter.
I did however today, feel the pull of the drip, drip, drip and the distant call of the mini-feed on facebook, as every one at work uses it.

Stay tuned in to see how I get on.

The End of Day 1

Well its fast approaching the end of day 1, of my little experiment. Work was surprisingly easy and I managed to stay away from Facebook, msn, skype or any form of time wasting site or service.

I realized that if I could keep this up for long enough I may actually get a lot of shit done.

Self control never came easily to me as a child, teenager or an adult, though how I managed to kick a 20 a day smoking habit, I don't know.

I realised today that I DONT NEED facebook, my life functioned just fine with out it before, infact I used to have loads more fun and get up to all sorts of stuff before.

As the years have gone on, I have relied more and more on msn messenger, myspace, gdar, and other internet chat sites ans services to feed my desire for human interaction.

It has to be said that nothing beats good old fashioned face to face connections.

I also got to think about the things I do'nt do any more; ask you self these simple questions;

1. When was the last time you just sat and read at home, and by read, I mean a real book and not a glossy mag, the news paper or some article on the internet, a real book with real pages, something to exercise that brain, get it to churn and listen and learn, I mean kicked back, turn the TV and computer off and sat back and relaxed and read..? maybe never?

2. When did you last sit back and just listen to music, just lie down and look at the cieling and think about your life, your hopes and dreams, make plans and sing.

3. When did you just pick up the phone and call you friends and arrange something over the phone, instead of sending a text message, an email, or a facebook meeting request.

4. When did you last just go for a walk, just to go for a walk and clear your mind.

All these things you may do or may not do, but I feel that because of my constant "ON STATE" my constant connection to this here system that I am connecting to, you through, I have become a drone.

I sat at my computer the other night, trying to work, trying to get on with some personal project and I just couldn't, it was like there was some kind of dull fuzz, an interference, if you will, that was blocking me. I think I understand what it is now.

It is the constant drip drip drip, of the facebook mini-feed, of the new emails, the new posts on myspace, the drip drip of messages from the meaningless "friends" on msn messenger, that pose as a constant and continuous distraction from every day life, and its array of necessary tasks.

This interference pattern may not occur in all of us, but I do believe that a vast majority of us are very prone to these addictive patterns. It is definitely why gambling, drug addiction, debt and all the other social diseases, we have today have become so rampant in our society.

People are over whelmed with stimuli that it creates this interference pattern in the brain.

I don't know if I will go back to facebook , how I feel after today, I am not sure I will ever use it again, I feel like someone told me a terrible secret and it struck fear in me so deep that I woke up as if from a terrible nightmare, with a huge intake of breath and a cold sweat on my brow.

Only time will tell, but for the moment, it is only day 1 and I do not want to get ahead of my self.

Drip, Drip, Drip I can hear the call of a distant RSS feed, and mini-feed, a message board, the drip, drip, drip of information, slowing calling, longing for my minds connection.

Connect with the drip, drip, drip and soon you will see how the hands on your watch begin to speed up, and faster and faster before the night is gone.

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, as each week flies by, day after day rolling over and over, as the sands of your own personal sand timer begin to speed up, ask your self? Does this connection serve me? Does it add to my life? Or is it sapping my life?

Think, read, write and create, the only forces against the interference, the only way to block it out and stop the consumption and dull muffled overwhelming battle from with-in.

Admitting is the first step to solving your addiction.

Hello World.

Tonight is the first night, I sat down and realized that I have a problem.

Since I began using the internet way back in 1997 I have chatted on line, it all began with IRC, for all your young folk, IRC is a short name for Internet relay chat, its what people used to use to chat with, thousands of chat rooms, about every type of thing. Think of a person, a fetish, an idea and you will find a chat room on IRC on some IRC server somewhere.

I have wasted countless hours chatting to random people about meaningless crap, and today i realized that it has to stop.

I want to have a happy, fruitful and full life, but I spend way too much time chatting and trying to connect with people, that don't honestly give a damn. It is an addiction and I think I can finally say that I am hooked and I have been hooked for a long time.

You ask, whats so bad about it, if its not actually hurting me? Well I will tell you whats wrong with it... it is like a silent thief, whats it stealing? I hear you say; well i would say one of the most important things and most priceless things we could ever own in our lives...

Time...

Hours and hours and hours of my life have been lost, doing piss all sitting chatting, and connecting with people, and things that do not count.

Us watching them, watching them watching us? Why what for?

It all feeds some deep and hidden human desire, the fear of being alone..

But tonight I realized that it has to stop, its holding me back.

With the recent onset of Facebook in to my life, it has taken an even bigger chunk of my personal and free time, I check it on my phone, I check it at work, I check it at home, I check it when I get up in the morning and before I go to sleep at night...

Checking, looking, watching, hopeing waiting, wondering, checking, updating, updating, adding, watching, looking... and what for? Why?

So I can feel connected to my friends and family? Its all a lie, you want to know how I really feel? I couldn't feel more disconnected from people.

It is so impersonal, all people do, is just message you, and arrange things over Facebook, noone can be bothered to pick up the phone.

MSN messenger is the same, I have countless "friends" on msn messenger that are always online, we chat, and talk about meaningless bollox for hours and hours, when I should be working studying, learning, talking to friends, drawing, running, and all the other stuff I should be doing in my life.

These technologies only create an excuse for people not to interact in real life, they take the human out of human contact, and Ive had enough.

So today is Monday 18th of February 2008 and I am going to cut it all out, first for a week and then see how I feel, see what happens if I can survive with out it.

Its become so in-grained in my life, its going to be worse then when I managed to give up smoking, which I did COLD TURKEY after a 20 a day habit.

So if your interested and you have got this far, come with me on this little journey I am going to take you on.

The thing is, my job is Internet based, I work on the web, I work as a digital designer for a London media agency, so it will be hard, but I am going to do it, I think my life will be a lot better off. Actually writing about it here, is a very cathartic experience, I hope that I can offer some advice and solace for any other poor soul that feels like I do, about this disease.

A very digital addiction.