After a break of about 4 months, I ventured back into ‘Social Media’ a couple of weeks ago and just in that short space of time I’ve managed to…

1. Offend my wife – by making ‘flirtatious’ comments on a work colleague’s Facebook page. ( This was a classic case of ‘context’ – an innocent ‘tongue in cheek’ remark – but easily and understandably misinterpreted.)

2. Offend my daughter – by requesting that she confirms I am her father on Facebook. (Clearly not something you ask a 13 year old to do)

3. Offend ex-colleagues – by being vocal and, no doubt, a bit zealous about things that bug me in the world of Web Marketing and Information Management. (Having worked at the sharp end of this for most of my career, and particularly over the last 3 years, I hate to see organisations being misled by meaningless and intangible concepts and acronyms dreamt up to make old solutions sound new)

4. Offend US followers – by showing support for Julian Assange (as a fundamentally good man) and Wikileaks on the principle of Freedom of Speech. (I tweet and blog as myself and thus have no constraints in having to appear neutral on matters that I see as extremely important in our world – if you don’t like what I say or what I stand for – don’t follow me)

5. Offend myself – by blindly following the NSPCC related Facebook meme without checking the facts first. (Although in retrospect I’m sure the charity has been grateful for the additional publicity it has received at a crucial time of the year.)

That’s pretty good going for just two week’s effort 😉

If I was being scientific about this, I probably should have monitored my blood pressure while I was ‘SM Free’ and then compared it with the results today. I’m guessing it is higher than it was and I can say for sure that my levels of anxiety have risen dramatically over the last week in particular.

So, if someone asked me bluntly ‘Does Social Media make you happy?’ my instant reaction, based on the last two weeks, would be ‘no’.

The underlying problem with Social Media, is that it is drawing us into deeper and deeper levels of Internet addiction. Is this a problem? Well, if the experiences of the most wired nation on earth are concerned then I’d say yes. South Korea has a big, big problem that has gained a lot of commentary over the last year in particular. In other nations, such as the UK, we are steadily heading towards the levels of bandwidth and ubiquitous web access the Koreans have been experiencing before us. Combine this ubiquity with the growth of Social Networking applications and you have a recipe for some very serious social issues.

Personally, I’m happy to admit I’ve battled with ‘Internet Addiction’ (in as far as it has been defined) for years since first experiencing the web as part of my job role back in 1995. Why do I know it’s an addiction? Well, I was a smoker for around 10 years and, at one point, was getting through at least 40 a day – so I understand the cravings addiction creates, the satisfaction the act provides and the horrible feelings that accompany withdrawal.  I’ve experienced all of these things to varying degrees with the Internet over the last 15 years. As with smoking, things have built up and up until I’ve reached a point where I’ve found my behaviour to be ridiculous and unreasonable and been determined to change it. With smoking, I called an end to it for good and have never looked back in 20 years;  Alcohol, I can binge on sometimes but also go long periods without; Food, again I can binge but I know that  I can and will lose that weight with the same determination I used to kick a heavy smoking habit; Gambling, never appealed; Gaming, the occasional late nighter if I really get hooked on a game; Porn, yep – reached saturation and boredom levels quite a few years back; the Internet though – that’s a different matter…

The Internet is now so pervasive that there is no way, other than global Armageddon, that we are going to step back from it. I fear deeply though, through experiences over the last 15 years, that many nations and societies are only just starting to understand the impact of what is happening around us right now.

Someone commented to me during the last week that ‘The person who is tired of Twitter, is tired of life’ – I’m fast coming to the conclusion that ‘The person who is tired of Twitter, will get their life back’…