Sunday, May 3, 2009
Thanks
Twitter Stress???
Does The Way You Twitter Cause You Stress?
by Marianna Paulson of Change of Heart Stress Solutions (@AuntieStress)
How to prevent yourself from becoming scrambled.
Anyone who has spent more than 5 minutes on Twitter recognizes that blue bird. And, like any bird, it began life as an egg. Fortunately, one that didn’t crack and end up scrambled!
Just as in life, there are stages of learning & growth on Twitter.
My invitation to Twitter came from that brilliant international branding bird @coffee_offline who said, “Just Do It! You’ll love it!.” (I’ll leave it to you to delve into her background!)
Admittedly, my initial thoughts were, “What am I going to do with this?” Fortunately, I know how to overcome those limiting thoughts. I recognized those triplets named Doubt, Impossibility & Fear, who are cousins to Stress. (Have your invitations to Twitter been ignored? Consider the possibility that the benefits were over-shadowed by one of the aforementioned emotions.)
Here are my observations & suggestions to help you on your way:
The follower affliction
“I have 3 gazillion followers.” “I’ve lost 2 followers!” This constant score-keeping (egg-counting?) may contribute to the one basket effect. The stress basket. Consider these questions: Does your self-esteem rise and fall on the number of followers you have? Do you feel like it’s a competition? Is it quality or quantity? Are you interacting or number-watching?
Become aware of what is going on internally as you watch the numbers. Remember that your body is constantly reacting to your thoughts and emotions. The physical and chemical adjustments that are being made affect your emotional, mental and physical health. If your response to “Oh” is “Oh, that’s interesting!” versus, “Oh Oh!” your perception is likely causing you stress.
Twitter is about caring.
When we’re stressed, we lose the ability to care about not only ourselves but also our neighbours. We were able to witness a phenomenal act of giving when @Armano reached out & asked for help for #Daniela. There are similar stories, no less important, that occur on Twitter on a daily basis.
Many will never know how something they tweeted has provided someone with much-needed encouragement or help. If you’ve been helped by someone, I strongly urge you to let them know. This creates a “reverberational effect.” A very measurable change in heart rhythms occurs when we activate positive emotions. Life gets better, not only for you, but also for those with whom you come into contact.
Twitter is a society
And as in any society, there are responsibilities. Customs, traditions, folkways and mores provide us with guidance & rules. We are free to conduct ourselves as we see fit, however, there can be repercussions to our behaviour. There are those who are pushed out of the nest by the community for abusing this fine flock. As in the avian world, this “shove” can be a necessary part of growth.
In addition to Twitip, & the Twitter community itself, there are plenty of sites and blogs offering advice to ensure that you find your wings and fly.
Twitterunity
The heart of it is the ability to make connections and to communicate. Stress can cause us to be isolated. Twitter is an excellent forum that will allow you to emerge from your shell, find your voice and develop confidence. How wonderful to be able to leave the nest and fly to new heights! Who knows what you’ll see!
We are all in this together
When we appreciate the community that we’re all a part of, we learn. People are opening their hearts on Twitter. This fosters understanding and also acceptance. I see an openness that crosses cultures, political beliefs, religion & more. We don’t all think the same way & that makes for great discussion and sharing and I believe it leads to fewer struggles. A multi-coloured flock is far more interesting, as well!
Balance
Stress transformation is about balance; not only of your nervous system, but also your life. Wouldn’t you agree that Twitter is also about balance?
Here is the formula I use, based on 3 months of tweeting experience:
- Welcome
- Inspire
- Communicate
- Share and gather information
- Humour connects
- Ask questions
- Promote
- Celebrate
- Credit where it’s due: Retweet
- Thank
On that note, my heartfelt thanks to Darren Rowse, Kathrin Hardie and the creative developers of Twitter!
I had it totally backwards...
Ways to Beat Stress through Social Media and Networking
Posted by Vaibhav Kalamdani on January 11, 2009
Today, it is not uncommon to hear from people that they are undergoing stress. Be it the recession, family woes, heart-breaks, overwork or joblessness, stress has taken control over the human mind causing several health disasters, some even leading to death. But if you are one of those who is facing tough times in life or wish not to be affected much in the future, turn to social media and social networking immediately.
Stress management experts often recommend solutions like playing games, listening to music, interacting with friends, etc. to overcome stress. Considering the fact that social networks allow people to connect with friends and express their mood through status updates, there is high possibility that you will share your feelings or condition with selected few whom you trust and reduce the stress level to at least some extent.
Of course this may not be applicable to those who prefer meeting their friends personally. However, there may be instances where the person you wish to meet is far away from you, say in another town or country. At such times, you can express yourself either in few words on Twitter or by updating your mood on Facebook, as most of the social networks today offer privacy settings for you to choose selected people with whom you wish to communicate.
Secondly, some social networks provide users with the chat facility to make communication easier and faster in case two or more friends are online at the same time. Though some of you may not want to express your feelings at all, chatting with friends or family can help in easing you and talk about general topics to divert your mind.
When it comes to playing games, most of the social networks provide several entertaining games that can help you cope up with the stress and relax your mind. What’s more! These games are entertaining, interactive and easy to play, without pressuring your mind.
Social media sites like YouTube, Google Video and host of others can be used to view videos, listen to your favourite soundtracks, etc. to relieve your stress and get engaged in community discussions. It is really amazing that these sites offer almost all genres of music, from which you can select what you are most comfortable with.
Critics might argue that too much of social networking can lead to additional stress, which is quite a valid point. For example, any rude comment or no response can add salt to the wound, making things worse. But this depends a lot on how you behave and conduct yourself when networking online. You need to be patient and calm, and never take out your frustration on others, as it will only harm you in the long run.
Finally, use social media and social networks as a solution and not as an addiction to relieve your stress. Stress is common to almost all, and it only depends on how strongly you combat it without affecting your life much.
Looking for the Perfect Final Posts
SAN FRANCISCO — They work long hours, often to exhaustion. Many are paid by the piece — not garments, but blog posts. This is the digital-era sweatshop. You may know it by a different name: home.
A growing work force of home-office laborers and entrepreneurs, armed with computers and smartphones and wired to the hilt, are toiling under great physical and emotional stress created by the around-the-clock Internet economy that demands a constant stream of news and comment.
Of course, the bloggers can work elsewhere, and they profess a love of the nonstop action and perhaps the chance to create a global media outlet without a major up-front investment. At the same time, some are starting to wonder if something has gone very wrong. In the last few months, two among their ranks have died suddenly.
Two weeks ago in North Lauderdale, Fla., funeral services were held for Russell Shaw, a prolific blogger on technology subjects who died at 60 of a heart attack. In December, another tech blogger, Marc Orchant, died at 50 of a massive coronary. A third, Om Malik, 41, survived a heart attack in December.
Other bloggers complain of weight loss or gain, sleep disorders, exhaustion and other maladies born of the nonstop strain of producing for a news and information cycle that is as always-on as the Internet.
To be sure, there is no official diagnosis of death by blogging, and the premature demise of two people obviously does not qualify as an epidemic. There is also no certainty that the stress of the work contributed to their deaths. But friends and family of the deceased, and fellow information workers, say those deaths have them thinking about the dangers of their work style.
The pressure even gets to those who work for themselves — and are being well-compensated for it.
“I haven’t died yet,” said Michael Arrington, the founder and co-editor of TechCrunch, a popular technology blog. The site has brought in millions in advertising revenue, but there has been a hefty cost. Mr. Arrington says he has gained 30 pounds in the last three years, developed a severe sleeping disorder and turned his home into an office for him and four employees. “At some point, I’ll have a nervous breakdown and be admitted to the hospital, or something else will happen.”
“This is not sustainable,” he said.
It is unclear how many people blog for pay, but there are surely several thousand and maybe even tens of thousands.
The emergence of this class of information worker has paralleled the development of the online economy. Publishing has expanded to the Internet, and advertising has followed.
Even at established companies, the Internet has changed the nature of work, allowing people to set up virtual offices and work from anywhere at any time. That flexibility has a downside, in that workers are always a click away from the burdens of the office. For obsessive information workers, that can mean never leaving the house.
Blogging has been lucrative for some, but those on the lower rungs of the business can earn as little as $10 a post, and in some cases are paid on a sliding bonus scale that rewards success with a demand for even more work.
There are growing legions of online chroniclers, reporting on and reflecting about sports, politics, business, celebrities and every other conceivable niche. Some write for fun, but thousands write for Web publishers — as employees or as contractors — or have started their own online media outlets with profit in mind.
One of the most competitive categories is blogs about technology developments and news. They are in a vicious 24-hour competition to break company news, reveal new products and expose corporate gaffes.
To the victor go the ego points, and, potentially, the advertising. Bloggers for such sites are often paid for each post, though some are paid based on how many people read their material. They build that audience through scoops or volume or both.
Some sites, like those owned by Gawker Media, give bloggers retainers and then bonuses for hitting benchmarks, like if the pages they write are viewed 100,000 times a month. Then the goal is raised, like a sales commission: write more, earn more.
Bloggers at some of the bigger sites say most writers earn about $30,000 a year starting out, and some can make as much as $70,000. A tireless few bloggers reach six figures, and some entrepreneurs in the field have built mini-empires on the Web that are generating hundreds of thousands of dollars a month. Others who are trying to turn blogging into a career say they can end up with just $1,000 a month.
Speed can be of the essence. If a blogger is beaten by a millisecond, someone else’s post on the subject will bring in the audience, the links and the bigger share of the ad revenue.
“There’s no time ever — including when you’re sleeping — when you’re not worried about missing a story,” Mr. Arrington said.
“Wouldn’t it be great if we said no blogger or journalist could write a story between 8 p.m. Pacific time and dawn? Then we could all take a break,” he added. “But that’s never going to happen.”
All that competition puts a premium on staying awake. Matt Buchanan, 22, is the right man for the job. He works for clicks for Gizmodo, a popular Gawker Media site that publishes news about gadgets. Mr. Buchanan lives in a small apartment in Brooklyn, where his bedroom doubles as his office.
He says he sleeps about five hours a night and often does not have time to eat proper meals. But he does stay fueled — by regularly consuming a protein supplement mixed into coffee.
But make no mistake: Mr. Buchanan, a recent graduate of New York University, loves his job. He said he gets paid to write (he will not say how much) while interacting with readers in a global conversation about the latest and greatest products.
“The fact I have a few thousand people a day reading what I write — that’s kind of cool,” he said. And, yes, it is exhausting. Sometimes, he said, “I just want to lie down.”
Sometimes he does rest, inadvertently, falling asleep at the computer.
“If I don’t hear from him, I’ll think: Matt’s passed out again,” said Brian Lam, the editor of Gizmodo. “It’s happened four or five times.”
Mr. Lam, who as a manager has a substantially larger income, works even harder. He is known to pull all-nighters at his own home office in San Francisco — hours spent trying to keep his site organized and competitive. He said he was well equipped for the torture; he used to be a Thai-style boxer.
“I’ve got a background getting punched in the face,” he said. “That’s why I’m good at this job.”
Mr. Lam said he has worried his blogging staff might be burning out, and he urges them to take breaks, even vacations. But he said they face tremendous pressure — external, internal and financial. He said the evolution of the “pay-per-click” economy has put the emphasis on reader traffic and financial return, not journalism.
In the case of Mr. Shaw, it is not clear what role stress played in his death. Ellen Green, who had been dating him for 13 months, said the pressure, though self-imposed, was severe. She said she and Mr. Shaw had been talking a lot about how he could create a healthier lifestyle, particularly after the death of his friend, Mr. Orchant.
“The blogger community is looking at this and saying: ‘Oh no, it happened so fast to two really vital people in the field,’ ” she said. They are wondering, “What does that have to do with me?”
For his part, Mr. Shaw did not die at his desk. He died in a hotel in San Jose, Calif., where he had flown to cover a technology conference. He had written a last e-mail dispatch to his editor at ZDNet: “Have come down with something. Resting now posts to resume later today or tomorrow.”Sunday, April 26, 2009
Why eBay seems to have cracks in its armor....
A Decade Ago...
http://technologizer.com/2009/04/23/whatever-happened-to-the-top-15-properties-of-april-1999/
On-Line Principles....Really?
http://www.mercurynews.com/breakingnews/ci_12220966