“Our current version of the internet lives and breathes off a currency of human attention. With the success and failure of many internet companies predicated on how much of a person’s time they can capture.” Jesse Weaver, Instagram and the cult of the attention web.

After stepping away from Facebook and Twitter for a month and subsisting on a diet of chronologically, self-customized feeds instead of algorithmily-defined ones, I realized how empty much of that content is. Also, I miss Google Reader.

During the past 30 days, I decided to take a break from Twitter and Facebook. Here’s what I discovered:

Facebook

I didn’t miss it much and, to my surprise, there wasn’t much in terms of news and announcements that I wasn’t able to get from other sources. There is one professional group that provides me access to information that I can’t get anywhere else (without as little effort) and it’s necessary for me to be on Facebook for my job, but I could easily let my profile go dark, quietly exit that space, and only use the FB messenger app to stay in contact with friends.

Twitter

This was much more difficult to ignore. For real-time events, conversations, and news, there really isn’t an alternative for me. While I was certainly able to get by without it, I missed checking in during breaking news and, most of all, connecting with the community there. One obvious benefit: it’s been much easier for me to single-task. So I’m torn on whether I want to return to my previous levels of engagement.

Ellen Finnie has shared some exciting news coming out of MIT libraries: their collections budget is now under their scholarly communications program. This will potentially give collections librarians the flexibility to significantly shift the way they strategize and negotiate purchasing decisions. The “vote with your money” approach is perhaps one of the best options we have when it comes to changing the scholarly publishing landscape in favor of a more open, affordable, and “healthier” system.

It also opens up opportunities for having tough but nonetheless important conversations with faculty who insist they need journal x for their research but who may not realize the full implications of publisher x’s licensing terms. It’s high time, in my opinion, the we (librarians and academic) take back the responsibility for stewarding scholarly information to create a system that better reflects our values and aims.

Living in a large, urban area has afforded me the luxury of being able to work for multiple academic institutions without having to relocate. Unfortunately in academia, moving around is the norm and, as Margaret Kosmala points out, is risky for individuals and families alike, especially those who identify as racial or ethnic minorities, are part of same-sex relationships, or come from underrepresented groups in higher  ed.

“Frequent moving needs to stop being the norm for early career academics. It’s harmful in many, many ways.”

Kosmala looks at how this practice in academia negatively impacts diversity as well as its extremely harmful effect on mental health. In the same vein, Marria Accardi has written a post about keeping burnout at bay. These are the types of posts that catch my attention of late.

In my own life, I’ve adopted practices similar to those in Marria’s post, including scheduled quiet time, meditation, weekly pre- and post-review sessions, and daily walks. I’ve also begun meeting regularly with a therapist to address my (albeit mild) anxiety and depression, exercising a few times a week, and dedicating myself to 7-8 hours of sleep (infant and toddler notwithstanding). This of course means sacrificing some projects and quite often saying no to new ones.

The most difficult practice for me has been changing the way I react to stress. When someone walks into my office with an urgent concern, I try to make a conscious effort to remain detached and examine the issue as a puzzle to be solved, not as a fire that needs to be squelched. I am guilty more often than I care to admit of making too much to do of what objectively are minor issues and this undoubtedly contributes to my elevated stress levels.

The one problem I have yet to solve is the lack of time for research. This can’t happen at home (unless I am willing to sacrifice sleep or attention to my family) and so my only option is to find time during the work day. I am currently experimenting with various scheduling methods and tricks, like setting meetings with myself and slightly closing my office door, but these are often undone. If anyone has solutions to offer, I’m all ears!