Technology Expert Sarah Kimmel outlines the 5 laws of social media to help you stay out of the trap.
Feed Reader – One of the best things you can do to help you keep up with all of the blogs that you read is to add the subscriptions to a feed reader. Visit reader.google.com and subscribe to all of the blogs that you read. When the blog is updated the feed reader will let you know, and you won’t waste time constantly checking pages that are not updated.
Don’t Be Afraid to Ignore – The great thing about setting up the blogs in the feed reader is that you can click one button and mark all of the new posts as “read”. Don’t feel guilty about ignoring when you just don’t have the time to devote to it. This is also a good rule for places like Facebook. The person who you barely knew in High School that is requesting to be your friend will not feel bad or rejected if you ignore the request. Most times they probably don’t even remember that they requested to be your friend. Limiting your list of friends to actual friends will help you to be able to keep up with the people you really do want to keep up with. Don’t waste your time with things that are of no interest to you, and don’t feel bad about it either.
Avoid the Apps – Online games like Farmville, Mafia Wars, Various Facebook Quizzes, etc, are such a waste of time. It is very simple to hide these requests and apps from your Facebook page so that you are not even tempted to check them out. Even if that particular app looks fun to you, don’t even start and you will never know what you are missing.
Set Time Limits – If you have already been sucked into apps, or you happen to follow way too many blogs, it’s time to set some time limits for yourself so that you can still enjoy the computer, but it won’t take up your entire day. Open one tab of your browser to http://e.ggtimer.com/ and set a time limit for yourself. A good limit is 30 minutes. Here is the link for a 30 minute timer http://e.ggtimer.com/30%20minutes
Limit Comments – Another time waster is comments. If you comment on all of your friends statuses, and 30 different blogs, that time can seriously add up. A good rule of thumb is to only comment when you can add something to the conversation. Don’t comment with things like… “yummy” or “Wow”. If you have something to add that hasn’t already been said then GREAT, comment away!
Sarah Kimmel is in the thick of the technology world, but tries to stay out of the trap. You can find out more at www.organizedmom.net,
http://twitter.com/theorganizedmom,
http://facebook.com/theorganizedmom
Add comment