Going "unplugged" for a week

In a few days I am going to be "unplugged" for an entire week. And honestly, I can't wait.

Shocking, right?

I'm the woman who loves all things social media and is never more than a few feet away from her iPhone. I work in social media. I check my email first thing in the morning ... before coffee. And I check email again, one last time before bed. The other night I had insomnia at 3 a.m. ... and so I was on Twitter.

It feels as if I'm always online...Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, Pinterest, blogs. And it's becoming a bit too much.

Lately I have felt CHAINED to my laptop ... in a not-so-good-way. I spend hours every day sitting at this desk, working. And since my work is all about social media, I'm always online. And then when work is done I'm still online. Twitter. Facebook. Pinterest. Email.

Wash.
Rinse.
Repeat.

I try to walk away but somehow I still find myself scanning Pinterest. Or thinking about blogging. Or lurking on Facebook. Or staring at Twitter for no good reason. And it's annoying me. I'm finding myself unfollowing more Pinterest boards than I'm following .. simply because the board bothers me. Or I edit Facebook status updates in my head because the grammar is horrific. Or I yell at Facebook  because someone spelled wrote "gull bladder" instead of "gallbladder." (Yeah. that happened).

So, um, yeah.
I think I need to unplug.
Walk away.
Put the iPhone down for an entire week.
And regroup.
Refocus.
Relax. 

And I'm sure that when I rejoin the interwebs at the end of this month I'll have some great stories to share. Like the time when I decided to unplug and start twitching two hours after my last tweet. Yeah, stories just like that.

Overload?

I was thinking about my online presence yesterday.

I remember way back when (in 1995 actually, right after I graduated from college), I had just ONE e-mail address. And that's it. No Facebook, no Twitter, no blogs.

The internet was just a wee little thing....no one really knew what to do with it.

Fast forward to 2009....

I currently have FOUR e-mail addresses. Yes, four. And one more that is only for a 'job' I'll mention later.

I write three blogs: this one, that one, and that one.

I was recently asked to be the blog manager for a friend's blog (this is where the 5th e-mail comes into play).

I am on Facebook.
More often than I should be probably.

I live on Twitter. (Well actually on Tweetdeck...)
I have 226 followers and follow 405 people.
Not high numbers by any stretch of the imagination...but it keeps me busy.
(And yes, at least 200 of the people I follow are Disney-related....go figure).

I have about 600 bookmarks - (more than 100 of those bookmarks are Disney-related - blogs, web sites, travel planning, etc).

I read news online.
I bank online.
I chat online.

Oh yes, I'm on Google chat and I have a Google wave (and I'm not sure what to do with that!).

And to add to this madness, I also am a proud (and addicted) Blackberry owner -- and I'm always checking e-mail, tweets and Facebook.
My mom said to me yesterday, "Does your phone beep like that all the time?"
Um, yes it does Mom, yes it does.

Can you relate?

I love this cartoon.

I think some of us can relate.