This allowed for a natural experiment. What would change in my life if I didn’t put social media back on my phone?

I have not looked at Instagram or Facebook since June 3rd. I decided to go back on Twitter (mostly in a lurking capacity) this past weekend because it really is a good source for breaking news.

(I occasionally look at LinkedIn, and my business is still posting content there, but I don’t think anyone views LinkedIn as being an addictive sort of social media.)

So, what did change in my life? Well, my screen time tallies did not go down. My new iPhone is shinier and faster than my last one! What can I say — it’s more fun to use.

I quickly realized that I have a strong desire to scroll through something. In the absence of social media, this wound up being comments at the New York Times and on blogs. In the absence of Instagram and Facebook, I wound up looking through my own old photos a lot (which Apple assists with — its slideshow widget is quite good). I did more online shopping. Seriously. I spent a lot of time scrolling at Amazon, Nic + Zoe, NYDJ, Kut from the Kloth, etc.

Now, there is an argument to be made that the comments on blogs and the New York Times are more wholesome than those on Twitter, though I’m not sure that’s true. My own photos are less problematic than social media ones in terms of comparison, though again, not entirely. I wish I had appreciated how un-wrinkly I was in 2016 at the time. Shopping is…shopping.

So where does this leave us? Basically, reminding me that most of us waste some amount of time. The human desire to avoid boredom during time that is not otherwise spoken for is strong. Getting off social media mostly just changed how I wasted time. I don’t have a huge desire to get back on Insta/FB right now, and I may sign out of Twitter if the news calms down (if only) but I have not become massively more productive, much as I might wish that were true. Oh well!

In other news: Here’s a round-up of this week’s content!

Over at Vanderhacks I wrote about how we should “Choose how much news to consume,” perhaps “Take a spending pause” during the Prime day sales, and behind the paywall I wrote about how “Nothing is fun for the whole family” — but there are some things you can do to have adventures with a varied crew. If you’d like a daily dose of life strategies, please consider a free or paid subscription!

In the Before Breakfast podcast I talked about how “Magic happens in the mushy middle” and that “You can go a long way in a weekend.” Someone wrote me that she listened to that episode and booked a weekend away — excellent.

Over at the Best of Both Worlds Patreon community site, we’ve been covering advice for parents sending kids to sleep-away camp for the first time. This week’s episode was a mailbag one (recorded together in person!). Please give it a listen, and as always we welcome ratings and reviews.

We live in a distracted world. Perhaps, for instance, you are reading this at work. Maybe you followed a link to The Huffington Post from Facebook or Twitter. Why were you on Facebook? Well, you were checking your email when you saw someone posted a reply to a thread you’d been on, and next thing you knew, you were reading the feed, and now you’re here and, hey! Is it 5:00 already?

I’ve been talking with a lot of people lately about how we spend our time, and in almost every group, someone asks “How can I keep my focus?” It’s a good question. At work, that shiny bauble called the Internet is always just a click away, and at home it’s easy to flip on the TV, start puttering through the Pottery Barn catalog, or sneak a quick iPhone check. We feel bad, because we know there are more important things we should be doing. Like, um, our jobs. Yet something comes up — I will admit that I wandered over to the L.L. Bean website while typing this — and here we are.

Since I recently wrote a book, 168 Hours, about time, people usually expect me to have an answer, so for a while I was researching various tricks for taming distractions. I learned about tools that block your Internet access. I learned about highly productive people who set timers and then rewarded themselves with Internet breaks. Others hid their email programs in difficult-to-access files, or only returned emails at certain times.

I’m sure these are all good ideas, but as I’ve been pondering the question of how we spend our time, I’ve realized that timers and web-blocking tools and the like are all defensive strategies. It’s hard to win a football game based on defense. It also wears you out to be constantly guarding your end zone.

A good offense, on the other hand, means your defense doesn’t have to be quite so tight.

What does playing offense mean when it comes to distractions? Here’s the key: when you build an interesting life, one filled with things you enjoy, all those meaningless distractions look a lot less shiny. If I’m having coffee with a real friend to talk about the non-profit she’s launching, I’m not over at Facebook reading about how various “friends” really need some more coffee (right now!).

Or consider two hypothetical days. During the first, I’ve set goals for a particularly challenging workout in the morning. I spend the rest of the A.M. hours interviewing two fascinating sources, then grab lunch with some colleagues, during which we share strategies for our most important projects. In the afternoon I polish an essay I’m really proud of, then hit the playground and the bookstore with my kids before my husband and I attempt a new dinner recipe we’ve been meaning to try.

During the second, I have nothing in particular going on, except a work project that I never wanted to take on in the first place.

Which day do you think will involve more web wandering?

The distractions of modern life can easily expand to fill the available space. We can set timers and hide our email programs in an attempt to beat back the hordes. Or we can fill our lives with so many wonderful things that there’s just not a whole lot of room left for distractions.

The latter takes more effort, but if you think about it, sounds like a lot more fun.

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Of course, few things are ever black and white, and social media inhabits that great gray area. I have had an active Twitter presence (@lvanderkam) for about 6 months. It is insanely addictive; I’d estimate that I check it several times a day. As someone who is trying to market a product (a book), I like the idea of being able to casually reach many people, without all the infrastructure involved in maintaining an email newsletter or (so retro!) an actual postal mailing list.

But is Twitter work? If I’m tracking my 168 hours, should it be work or leisure?

In the “work” category, I have a few data points. Twitter does drive some people to this blog, where they can learn more about me and my work. Twitter also enables me to scan lots of people in real time — for instance, when I needed to buy a ticket to BlogHer, which was sold out. I searched for people offering to sell a ticket, and (with some help from other folks too), scored one. BlogHer has already produced several media opportunities (of course, whether media leads to selling books is another matter… but…) It enables me to see pithy feedback from readers who might not contact me directly, because I can search for “168 Hours” or my name.

Reading Twitter may also sometimes count as work in a non self-promotional way. I’ve followed more than a few links myself to things that look interesting. Since I am constantly looking for story ideas, this gives me exposure to articles I might not have otherwise read. I am reminded, casually, when acquaintances have articles or books coming out, if I happen to see it.

And, of course, when I got an email saying Martha Stewart was following me on Twitter, that was pretty exciting.

But there are also several data points in the non-work category. For starters, despite the time and attention I have devoted (willingly! it’s addictive!) to Twitter over the past 6 months, this has had a fairly low payoff. Of the past 7000 visitors to this blog, 90 have come directly from Twitter. Granted, I only have about 650 followers. But several folks with far more impressive numbers (in the 5 figures) have tweeted or re-tweeted links to this blog. So we are talking hundreds of thousands of potential impressions leading to 90 click-throughs. Yikes. Not only that, many of these people have included my Twitter handle in their tweets. Sometimes, I get a few new followers out of that. But not many. My sense is that Twitter is a bit like workmen playing a radio as they’re doing renovations on the house next door to yours. Yeah, you can hear it, sort of. But you’re not paying attention.

Twitter veterans know this, so people pile on the tweets (like every 30 seconds) or try to be as shocking or grandiose as possible in order to grab you. On Twitter, every link is the Best Post Ever. Then people come up with strategies and products that organize tweets so you don’t have to see all this. All very fun. But I’m not sure most of it is work, if you generally think you should be earning more than minimum wage for the time invested.

Now, obviously, some people have gotten a great return on investment with Twitter. People do pay attention to celebrity tweets, and people can become celebrities via Twitter. S*it My Dad Says, the book based on the Twitter phenomenon, made the best-seller list. For me, though, I think I’m going to consider Twitter mostly in the leisure category for now.

I’m curious what other people have found.