Why I Left Facebook

• I realised that Facebook wasn’t making me feel more connected, instead it was making me feel more disconnected.
• I’d rather put my time and efforts into maintaining deep relationships. Quality over quantity.
• I’d never “found my voice” for socialising on Facebook. In the context, I felt awkward about sharing anything personal enough to be interesting.
• Even if I didn’t use Facebook to communicate on a personal level, I would still have a nagging feeling that I ought to check in to make sure I wasn’t missing anything. More of an obligation than anything else.
• Finding focus and flow, space for creativity and slow life means making conscious decisions for which parts of the internet I want to keep in my daily life and which ones I can leave aside.

Paradox of Our Time

It’s a paradox of our time that we are at once hyperconnected, and can conveniently stay in touch with large numbers of people, but at once feel more lonely and lack close friendship. The ability to share everything instantly with a large group of people seems to dilute the personal value, trivialising it, so that broadcasting status updates strips away the intimacy that’s generated when sharing in one-to-one communication.

Status update: in the present. 

Related Reading

With friends like these … Tom Hodgkinson on the politics of the people behind Facebook | Technology | The Guardian

12 social media icons for your blog or website. The collection includes badges for Google+, Instagram, Pinterest, email, RSS, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Flickr, StumbleUpon and Evernote. The badges are in transparent PNG-format.

These social media buttons are designed to work well both on light and dark backgrounds.

For maximum flexibility, and to work with a wide variety of web designs, these social media icons come in 5 sizes; 128×128, 48×48, 32×32, 24×24 and 16×16.

Enjoy!

< — Save the social media icons to your computer.

READ MARMALADE MOON VIA EMAIL

iPhone photography: Laundry

A fresh new year. Big dreams and hopes. Some people make resolutions, I make wishes and chose a theme for the year (my theme for the year is flow). But after the big splash of renewal settles down and everyday life sets in, it’s easy to lose sight of your big ideas for change. Dreams. Renewal. It’s all too easy to get caught up in the everyday bustle.

This year I’m thinking about which daily habits drained my energy in 2010 and which habits boosted my energy. Because after all, it’s in our daily life that change takes shape and dreams materialise. 5 minutes here and 5 minutes there. If we can replace energy drain with energy boost, we’d build a much more sustainable and fun daily life, right?

So, which daily habit drained my energy in 2010? Without a doubt, it was social media. It’s time to clean up my act. Simplify. Delete. Do I really need to keep that Flickr account or the showcase for my iPhone photography on Posterous that I haven’t updated since the summer? Is there a point in being on Facebook when I barely ever check in? While thinking about this, I’ve weaned myself off my favourite procrastination tool Twitter and I already feel energized.

What’s your theme for the new year? How do you deal with the stream of social media? Which daily habits drain and boost your energy?

It’s a mixed bag. Ideas for easy blogging. Thoughts on digital downsizing and social media as well as some beautiful and thoughtful inspiration for life.

EASY SUMMERTIME BLOGGING

• Take the 7 Link Challenge Today. The idea is to create a “sneeze page” that helps visitors to find the highlights of your blog, even as they drop off the front page of your blog. It’s an easy and fun challenge, and of course you can be creative and modify the questions if you like. From ProBlogger.
• Take a break from the pressures and expectations of regular blogging and let your photos do the all the talking for the month of August. The August Break is hosted by talented and lovely photographer & writer Susannah Conway.
• Blogging In a New Light: Simple Blogging. Turn your day into a poetic, enchanting poem accompanied by a photo. By mixed media artist Susan Tuttle.

TIME TO TAKE A BREAK FROM SOCIAL MEDIA?

• Time for a Digital Sabbatical? By Gwen Bell who owns a yoga studio, is writing a book about digital intimacy and is one of 2010′s Most Influential Women in Tech.
• Have you ever felt like you were spending too much time on social networking? Here’s a great read: Breaking Up the Social Networking Way. By paper aficionado Jen who creates delightful things made of paper and blogs at Simply Said.
• Social Media Has Damaged My Attention Span. An interesting article by jewelry designer and blogger Brandi who lives her life inspired by colour. Find Brandi’s jewelry at Catie’s Blue and her blog at Brandi Girl.
• Input vs. Creativity (Or, Thoughts on Surfing the Web) an interesting read by the ever resourceful, helpful, talented and friendly Sister Diane of CraftyPod.

INSPIRATION FOR LIFE

• Here are three thought-provoking articles for people who want to live life on their own terms by self development guru cowboy, Jonathan Mead of Illuminated Mind: Write Your Own Permission Slip, The Three Ways to Deal With Difficult Emotions and How to Overcome Limiting Beliefs.

Did you miss the first roundup of Resources for Creative Entrepreneurs?

Have you got any good reads about blogging, social media and digital downsizing that you’d like to share?

Magnolia

I’m reinventing my digital life. Again. It always seems to creep up on me, the increasing time I spend in my digital environment. The number of web sites on my RSS-feed and the jumble of e-mail in my inbox. Time with social media.

Today I saw a hedgehog outside the studio and took this photo of magnolia with my iPhone. And as I write this blog post, the evening breeze touches me with the scents of spring. This elusive time of year when each day the leaves on the trees open more. Shades of green, from lime to deep green. Blossoms…

It’s time to do some pruning and tiding up. Both in my balcony garden and in my digital life. The stream of information has become a flood. I need to take a step back to find some peace and quiet and to enjoy the summer. It’s time to spend more time out of doors than in my digital life.

This summer you’ll see less of me on Twitter and Facebook. I won’t be spending so much time visiting and commenting on blogs.

However, I’ll still be blogging regularly and Marmalade Moon will be updated each Tuesday, with an additional post later in the week if I have any extra news. I’ll soon be sending out the Spring Edition of Club Marmalade Moon and I’m putting the finishing touches to some desktop art soon to be released. So there’ll be lots going on. But I’ll also be making space for having some magnolia moments.

What are your plans for your digital life this summer? Will you be taking a vacation from your desktop environment or will it be a time when you perhaps enjoy spending a little more time on your computer projects?

For me, it was wonderful to not have to have Excel installed at home. Or Windows. Or Solitaire. Oh and WordPerfect!

My computer was a place where I learned new things. A playground. A digital canvas. A wonderful world of writing and painting and connecting with people.

A few years on I began freelancing and soon I started my own company, Marmalade Moon. All of a sudden both my work and many of my hobbies were on the same computer. In the same environment.

And gradually, my once so creative and peaceful digital canvas became a stressful environment flooded with e-mail, instant messaging, social media, the distractions of the internet and unread RSS feed items… Who thought of that idea anyway? “Unread items”? As though reading articles you’re interested in, is a list of obligations and not a pleasure? And yes of course it spills over into how you feel about it!

So here I was, in a wonderfully convenient and portable digital space that blended work with leisure, but finding myself feeling overwhelmed, unenthusiastic and stressed out.

And I knew that it wasn’t the tool itself, my computer, it was how I was using it.

There is a reason why we travel during our holidays! A change of scenery and having new experiences induces new perspectives and stirs the creative spirits. And here I was stuck in a stressful routine, spending too much time in the same digital environment. I needed to reinvent my digital life.

So I decided to create some new habits for my digital life. To make changes to how and when I browse the web, to clean up my RSS-feeds, my mail and to turn things on and off. To reduce the stream of information. To log off to find the time, inspiration and attention for the things I value most. To focus on being creative and connecting. To find my flow. And to return to my laptop to express myself.

The next thing I did was to get an iPhone. This Christmas I found the time to explore it and to create a delightful, personal digital space on my iPhone. This really got me excited and renewed my interest in my laptop too! It turned out to be a really fabulous move for me, to have a digital space that had absolutely no work on it!

Sometimes, it’s good to take a step back from everything. To get some perspective and re-focus. If you spend a lot of time in a digital environment, I think it’s important to now and then take a look at how it’s working for you. Reinventing my digital life has been so refreshing for me, that it’ll be one of the topics for my blog. With writings about creating a personal digital space, I hope to bring some inspiration to your digital life.