Do you tweet after sex?

Do you check your social media sites first thing in the morning, first thing when you're done with breakfast, first thing you sit down in the bus and get out your iphone, first thing you open your notebook in class, first thing...? Do you give status updates when you go to the toilet, or do you share your break-up with your twitter followers before it has even happened? Do you have many friends on facebook who you don't even know in real life? Yes??? Well, you might be social media addicted. To get more confirmation, take this quiz to see how addicted you are:


But don't worry. You are not alone. It has become so evident since you have internet access everywhere and all the time. Even more, you can carry around facebook, twitter etc. on your cell phone. According to a survey conducted by retrevo, many people - especially young people - use social media also in situations where they should focus on their "real" lives (one would suppose). See how many answered they tweet/text/check facebook often:


But is this addiction? Or does it just represent how our lives are today? On the website stopwritingonmywall.com, the Social Media Addicts Association (S.M.A.A.), you can confess your addiction, look at other testimonials, sign the petition "say no to social media" and buy T-shirts of the association. Of course, the association embraces social media to get awareness. While looking at the ads on the website and watching the video, it becomes clear that actually this association is part of a viral marketing campaign for the Sony Vaio. Sony pokes fun at the social media addiction phenomenon. Vaio - "Perfect for social media addicts" is the slogan. However, this topic is also discussed more seriously. Certainly, social media becomes a problem when it really starts affecting your real life. Once someone prefers spending time tweeting, blogging and adding virtual friends over talking to the people around him - such as family, friends and colleagues - there's need for action! Most of those discussing steps against social media addiction are against going cold turkey.

Start reducing gradually:
1) Go through your profiles. On which of them do you spend the most time and which are important to you? Delete those you are not interested in, let's say one per day.
2) Go through your friends lists. Are there people you don't talk to anyway, people whose status updates you never read? Delete them and don't accept new friends just for the sake of having a long friend list.
3) Having reduced the sites and people to deal with every day, you can use the time you spend on social media with those activities you really like. Then you can introduce a schedule. Make fixed times where you are allowed to use social media and don't deviate from it.
4) Tell someone in real life about everything BEFORE posting it as a status. Then you might think twice if that update is really needed.
5) Get other hobbies!

So, we hope you only read our blog because you are actually interested in what we're writing about and not just to satisfy your addiction! I have to go now, I think I got a facebook message...