Social Media

When Does Social Media Become Counterproductive?

If your bloodshot eyes look at the clock and it occurs to you that you spent the last 6 hours killing off people on Mafia Wars or cultivating your farm in Farmville, you may wonder how productive that time was really spent.

So, when does spending time on social media websites become counterproductive?

To determine the answer to this question, you may have to ask yourself a few more questions. We will get to that in a minute.  First of all, I would like to take a  moment and clarify the term "Social Media" since it can come in many forms.

A general definition of social media: the social interactions or exchange of ideas and/or links with many people through Internet or web-based technologies. This can broken down further into different methods of broadcasting these exchanges. Below are a few examples.

    * Blogs - There are many different types, but a blog generally is a website usually maintained by an individual with regular unedited posts, displayed in reverse chronologial order.
          o Examples: Blogger, WordPress, LiveJournal, TypePad

    * Microblogs - These are different than blogs due to the small size of the comments; used for real time news updates, marketing, links, and short commentary.
          o Examples: Twitter, Google Buzz, Tumblr, Plurk

    * Social Networking - Used as a means to connect with family, friends or colleagues who share common interests and/or activities.
          o Examples: Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Friendster, Bebo

    * Social Bookmarking -Websites used to provide links to share; provide a place where users can share, organize, search, and manage their bookmarks of web resources
          o Examples:  StumbleUpon, Delicious

    * Social News - Similar to social bookmarking, but focused more on news stories and similar links.
          o Examples:  Digg, Reddit, Mixx

An important concept in determining productivity is input versus output.  Is the input, or time spent, producing the output I desire. The first step is to think about your goal: WHY are you spending time on social media sites? May or may no be easy to answer, depending on how much psychoanalyzing you are up for.  Then, answer the following questions honestly.

    * How much time are you spending on social media websites?

    * Do you feel like you have had a productive day by getting on to these sites?

    * Are you neglecting "real" social interactions by spending time on social media sites?

    * Are other life events (laundry, exercise, eating, housecleaning, bathing, paying bills, going to work) getting neglected?

    * Is there a purpose or productive end goal by spending time on social media sites?

For this last question, you may have to analyze WHAT that end goal actually is. If it is to just waste time, you may want to readdress your goals in life.  For me, my end goal is to get more readers to my blog.  Spending 10 hours a day on social media sites may or may not be a productive use of time.

Again, think about the whole "bang versus buck" idea.

There are actually productive ways to participate in social media by being proactive and efficient.  If you find yourself spending three or four hours just "browsing" without interacting, this may be a waste of your time.

I think once you answer these simple questions, the answer to the first question will be pretty darn obvious.
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