by Dish Staff
https://twitter.com/JessGrose/status/505162305395781632
David Roberts reflects on choice to spend a year away from blogs and social media:
By the end of 2012 I was, God help me, a kind of boutique brand, with a reasonably well-known blog, a few cable-TV appearances under my belt, and more than 36,000 Twitter followers. I tweeted to them around 30 times a day, sometimes less but, believe it or not, gentle reader, sometimes much more. I belong to that exclusive Twitter club, not users who have been “verified” (curse their privileged names) but users who have hit the daily tweet limit, the social-media equivalent of getting cut off by the bartender. The few, the proud, the badly in need of help.
It wasn’t just my job, though.
My hobbies, my entertainment, my social life, my idle time—they had all moved online. I sought out a screen the moment I woke up. I ate lunch at my desk. Around 6 p.m., I took a few hours for dinner, putting the kids to bed, and watching a little TV with the wife. Then, around 10 p.m., it was back to the Internet until 2 or 3 a.m. I was peering at one screen or another for something like 12 hours a day.
And a break from social media proved relaxing:
By January, my days had settled into a rhythm. When I wasn’t walking or at yoga, I was doing yard work, reading novels, visiting with friends, fumbling away at a bass guitar, or enjoying time with the kids. Since I wasn’t working, they were no longer in after-school care, and in those hazy, unstructured afternoon hours before dinner we’d play catch or lie around the living room trading comic books. I spent hours at a time absorbed in a single activity. My mind felt quieter, less jumpy.
The balance his is going to try to strike going forward:
When I’m writing, I want to write with full focus. When I’m pinging, I want to ping without angst or guilt. When I’m with my family, I want to be with my family, not half in my phone. It is the challenge of our age, in work and in life: to do one thing at a time, what one has consciously chosen to do and only that, and to do it with care and attention.
I hope I’m up to it. That any of us are.
During his guest-blogging stint, Freddie deBoer mulled Roberts’ internet break and those of other writers.
The Dish 