"Who cares if I don't have a social networking account for 30 days? Now I only know what's happening in the lives of people that I actually talk to (or email). And that's the way things should be. I start to realise that looking at the facebook news page made me feel that people were talking to me and that I was engaged in other people's lives. But I wasn't. Real communication needs effort. It requires more than three seconds of my day and a 'like'."

"Even though my twitter account is small - I only have about 70 followers (and maybe half of those are spambots) - it's my little haven from the world. When things get too much, I pull out my phone for five minutes and let twitter and its avalanche of 140-character vignettes distract me. It's some 'me' time. It's like smoking for people who are too scared that their mother will catch them smoking and yell at them. And I don't smoke. I promise, mum. Although I might have to start if im expected to survive without Conan O'Brien's twitter feed in my life."

30 days without social networking
Sam Burnett