I’m not kidding.
Well, I didn’t actually kill the reader ITSELF. I’d have to hack Google to do that. I imagine they’d get a little mad.
No, I deleted the 628 news feeds I had coming into my feed reader. No, I’m not exaggerating. I checked 628 feeds daily.
As you can imagine, it took a good bit of time per day. I checked as much as I could in the morning before work, I checked via my phone when I could afford breaks during the day, and I checked after work the first thing when I got home, and then again before going to bed.
I’m an information junkie. I love hooking my head up to a direct pipe into the internet. It’s a darn good thing we don’t yet have neural interface computers, ‘cause I’d jack in and sit there drooling all day long.
And I didn’t have only geek stuff, either. I had feeds about bento boxes, I had feeds about scenery in Australia, I had feeds about car repair.
Suddenly, I realized that my habit was determining how I spent my day. I was no longer independent, I didn’t have control. I felt genuine angst when I couldn’t bring my “unread” count down to zero.
I heard myself say “Enough already! You’ll never learn it all, so put some moderation in your life!”
I did a “Select All” in Google Reader, and then hit delete.
I still find myself subconsciously clicking over to the Reader from GMail. But when I get there, it shows a blank screen.
So, I ask YOU. Do you have any experience doing something like this? Tell me in the comments. The Reader has been an integral part of my life for several years. Do you have something that’s become that ingrained, that perhaps might give you some freedom and autonomy if you were to drop it?
Please, leave some comments.
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{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Definitely, though it dates back to days when I belonged to 50 or so email lists and newsgroups. I do have too many feeds in my Google Reader, but for the most part, I just select and “Mark all as read” when I don’t feel like diving in. I still like having the feeds there, but I focus on just a dozen or two.
Chad
And I certainly should be doing that, too. My problem is, I can’t let any good info escape. IT ALL MUST BE CONSUMED.
Because of that, I feel a little stress hitting the “Mark all as read”, like I’m leaving food on my plate, ya know? On the other hand, if you’ve seen me recently, you know I SHOULD be leaving food on my plate occasionally.
Facebook eats my soul on a daily basis. Status updates in the morning and during “breaks” at work and meaningless time consuming games at night. I find myself thinking “why am I upstairs feeding fake fish when my husband is down, OOOO free dragon fruit for Restaurant City!!!”. It must be stopped. I envision myself deleting the application, temporarily terminating my account…but then i freak out and i can’t do it.
I know! I had a real problem with Facebook too. Mine were Mafia Wars, Vampire Wars, and Castle Age. Same schedule as you.
And I came to the same realization. I was obsessively clicking each game, and waiting for my countdown timer to expire so I could do another round…
So, I dumped them too. Except I left my Vampire Wars game going so Blackie could use it as an ally. But she logs in and plays my account, not me.
I’m still on Facebook just as much, I’m just not playing the games any more. *sigh*