Last weekend, I went golfing. In fact, I played 27 holes in one day.
I’m not a particularly enthusiastic golfer these days. When I do golf, my interest begins to wanee after about 12 holes. In fact, it’s my opinion that if golf were 12 holes rather than 18, it would probably a more enjoyable sport.
While golf may not be my cup of tea, there was an upside to playing that much golf: it forced me not to think about work. It’s difficult to do when you’re trying to get a tiny white ball into a small hole, while hanging out with friends who want to talk about other things than social media.
Social media can be terribly consuming, particularly if it’s how you make a living. It can be a non-stop, 24/7 world with constant demands on your time, as well as mental and physical energy.
This can make it easy to get a bad case of social media burnout. When it’s all social media all the time, it is difficult to keep going for long periods of time.
This makes getting away from social media so important and necessary. It is just not viable to continually think about, create and consume social media without taking a break – no matter how smart or proficient you are.
While social media burnout doesn’t get a lot of attention, it’s a fact of life. At some point, you will get to a point where the job stops being enjoyable. It becomes work, and the work is all about feeding the machine that doesn’t sleep.
So how can you prevent yourself from social media burnout?
Perhaps the easier thing is walking away from the screen – and not just for a few minutes.
It means doing something that physically and mentally takes you away from tweets, updates, posts, comments and likes. It could be golfing, fishing, reading, spending time with friends and family, playing sports, cooking or going out for dinner.
Whatever you do, it’s not social media – and that’s a good thing.
No matter what anyone tells you, doing or even thinking about one thing most of the time isn’t a healthy way to live. It is not physically or mentally possible to have a full life when a single interest is always front and centre.
Yes, there are people who are happily online all the time but they are anomalies or freaks of nature.
The rest of us need time to do something else…even golfing.
One more thing: walking away from the screen doesn’t mean it’s okay to continually check your smartphone. If you’re doing something else, do something else rather than also doing social media.
The truth is social media will be waiting for you so give it and yourself a break.
(Note: This post originally appeared on the Sysomos blog.)
