The amount of attention we have to give is finite.
The receipt of attention is earned, both initially to capture it, and continually to keep it. No one is entitled to it, ever.
The online experience you immerse yourself in is, to a large degree, under your control. You can give your attention easily with a click, and add information to the stream you take in. But never forget that you can remove it as easily, and sometimes you absolutely should.
I’m not a fan of the piling-on, lynch mob tactics that seem to be doled out as routine punishment for online misbehavior. I’m also not particularly a fan of the public announcement that you’re no longer a follower of so-and-so. Sometimes I suppose it’s beneficial to let someone know that you see what misbehavior they’re up to, or why they’ve lost your interest. But I think those occasions are few and far between (like, say, gross breaches of ethics or the law), and are much more likely to make us look as much like the jerks we’re trying to “call out”.
By contrast, quiet removal of attention can have several benefits. For your own sake, it’s one less fly in the online ointment to make your experience on the web shaded with unnecessarily upsetting or irritating things. Collectively, we can make an awful lot of impact by simply removing our attention without saying a word. Malicious malcontents and consistent jerkbags without audiences to feed their antics are as useless as a two-legged stool.
There is so much good information on the web. So many good, interesting people with outstanding ideas. So many causes to support. So much to learn and enjoy and entertain you.
Why would you spend one more second of your time – the one non-renewable resource that you always wish you had more of – on someone or something that doesn’t continually remind you why you spend it there?
Now before you give me the bit about having too much homogeny and groupthink in your stream if you only follow people that agree with you…
There’s not one shred of this post that says you should surround yourself with only people that think the way you do. But you can have diversity of thought, even disagreement, that can be unabashedly awesome. Uncomfortable, maybe, but in the way that your muscles hurt so good after a workout. You shouldn’t walk away from anyone or anything repeatedly feeling like garbage. It’s possible to disagree with someone, step way outside your comfort zone, and still have it actually be a rewarding experience.
Your line is almost certainly different than mine, which is fine. But do have one. Respect your own time as you would insist that someone else to respect it. Click unfollow. Unsubscribe. Unfriend. Edit relentlessly, and constantly as your interests and experiences change. Your criteria can evolve, but the ultimate accountability for the quality of your online experience will always be yours alone.
Take back your attention, and allow it to once again be focused in the places that enrich you. If we’re ever to really realize the potential of what the web has brought us, how we continue to bestow and devote our precious attention makes all the difference in the world.
Amber, I agree with you wholeheartedly. I’ve been recently considering how finite my time is and how precious it is. The part about editing mercilessly especially rang true with me. At the first of the year, I unsubscribed from everything in my Google Reader. I did this because I realized I was skipping over articles from so many of them more often than not. Some of it was mediocre content but the majority of it was just stuff that didn’t hold my interest anymore. I must have talked myself out of it four or five times but ultimately I cleared it and felt great about it. Now, I’m finding new (and old) sources of information organically and I feel like my stream is full of important and relevant stuff. And I love that feeling.
I couldn’t agree more, Amber.
I’ve been trimming back alot of my attention vis-a-vis who I follow on Twitter (and elsewhere) as it only distracts me from what I really want to do. What I’ve seen so far is a more interesting stream filled with better content and far-less navel-gazing. I still have alot of editing to do.
A large part of this was inspired by something you said in your post about spending time on something or someone. I found that the time I was spending (usually on everyone else’s stuff) was seriously eating into what I wanted to accomplish. I didn’t realize just how much of it I was doing until I actually sat back and thought about it. Let’s just say I learned a great deal about what I’m actually passionate about.
Thanks for writing this.
I’ve always been amazed as people (not me, never me) prattle on endlessly about someone they’ve ” given up on” long ago. Thanks for lending additional perspective on the subject.
Sometimes I feel like you’re inside my brain! In the last week, I used ManageFlitter to purge out lots of Twitter accounts I was following, and unsubscribed to several blogs that I continually hold off on reading. I’ve already noticed how refreshing it is to have new voices/faces show up in my Twitter stream. Finding fresh blogs is a fun challenge, but necessary too. Thanks!
It never ceases to amaze me how people feel so entrenched with their SM connections, be it Facebook, Twitter, or whatever else is new this week. Some folks simply can’t believe I’ve been sans-Facebook for almost 2 years, and that my twitter stream is largely just random crap I’m thinking or reading at the time, hardly a “thought leader” that Klout pegs me as.
My time belongs to me. Not them.
Kudos! Great advice, Amber, and spot on with a continual rant of mine whenever I receive a new email message from a friend — and open it up to see I was added to their email newsletter without being asked. So, I peruse it and nine out of ten times click the unsubscribe link.
On Twitter, I’m continually following and unfollowing as my interests and inspirations change. Some say that the on-and-off again process is bad for relationship building, but my take is if I engage with you on one platform why must it be all?
Kudos! Great advice, Amber, and spot on with a continual rant of mine whenever I receive a new email message from a friend — and open it up to see I was added to their email newsletter without being asked. So, I peruse it and nine out of ten times click the unsubscribe link.
On Twitter, I’m continually following and unfollowing as my interests and inspirations change. Some say that the on-and-off again process is bad for relationship building, but my take is if I engage with you on one platform why must it be all?
Awesome post. As a marketing, I often say we need to capture a moment of mindshare. Until we have that, as marketers directly or via others supporting us, we don’t have a chance.
Every marketer wants our attention and many are getting better at getting it. We all need to be very judicious about how we give it out and remembering what our real priorities are.
Awesome perspective, thanks for sharing!
I’ve been doing this since the start of the year. Reassessing my Twitter Lists, the blogs I read, the people I attempt to follow but actually I’m not sure why. As you say there is sooooo much great information out there and you are entirely in control of what you choose to consume and who you interact with
I totally agree. I like to keep a more active and evolving set of interests. I am a fan of finding those that disagree with me, those that I have similar interests and those that are close (well, maybe). It is my world…
Constructive participation is the creating of content which is instantly shared universally to others and arriving at economic models that fit into a personalised range of options that learn so much about you that you would not even know yourself … what more could you want?
I’ve been struggling with re-prioritizing this year according to some unexpected challenges and your thoughts here were a good reminder to me that there are areas that I can purge and help myself become more efficient and focused without much effort at all.
oh how interesting the timing of your message….I just deleted my facebook app, because it was taking away my focus. the only place I will facebook is from my home PC!
It is time to unplug a bit. There is a bigger world out there beyond the monitor. It used to be, “places to see and people to meet” It is time to take social media back to what it was. Just SOCIAL!.