What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes
the attention of its recipients. Hence, a wealth of information
creates a poverty of attention and a need to allocate that
attention efficiently among the overabundance of information
sources that might consume it. - Herbert Simon
Online forums, message boards, and newsgroups are now ubiquitous.
These powerful communication tools offer many strong benefits.
However, forum participation can also become a destructive
addiction, where the benefits are overshadowed by negative
side effects.
Here are some potential benefits of regular online forum
participation:
* Intellectual exchange
* Learning new ideas and refining old ones
* Enjoying community membership
* Influencing the forum's evolution
* Contributing to others
* Making new friends and contacts
* New business leads
* Keeping up with current events
* Learning about new opportunities
Here are some potential negative effects of excessive forum
usage:
* Reduced concentration and focus
* Reduced productivity
* Chronic procrastination
* Increased pessimism and/or apathy
* Being distracted by endless debates and idle gossip
* Gradually substituting tribal group think for your own
intelligence
* Impaired social skills, neglected relationships, and a
weakened social circle (a consequence of substituting online
socialization for face-to-face conversations)
* Reduced energy (forum participation is sedentary compared
to more active social outlets)
* Reduced self-esteem
* Career and income may suffer (including loss of employment)
* Forum addiction
Since the early 1990s, I've participated in many different
online forums, message boards, and newsgroups and have experienced
many of these positive and negative effects at various times.
I ran a popular game developer forum for almost two years,
so I've had experience both as a participant and a forum
operator. On the positive side, I've learned many great ideas,
made valuable new business contacts, and even met my wife
on a local computer bulletin board system. On the negative
side, I found excess participation to be a huge time drain
(and very addicting as well).
Here are some suggestions for using forums effectively and
avoiding the negative side effects:
1. Take a Forum Fast
First, if you're currently active in any forums, go on a
forum fast. Stop visiting all forums for a while; don't even
lurk. I recommend a fasting period of 30 days, with a bare
minimum of 14 days. This will help you break any unconscious
habits and regain your perspective, so you can intelligently
evaluate the role forums should play in your life. Otherwise,
you may be coming from a place of unconscious habit and will
likely overestimate the value of continued participation.
If you're currently a forum moderator, take a forum vacation,
and enlist someone to temporarily assume your moderation
duties. Redirect the time you would have spent in online
forums to something positive like exercising or reading books.
If you don't think you have the discipline to do this, simply
make a post in each forum explaining that you'll be taking
the next 30 days off, and if any forum member catches you
online, you'll pay the first person that emails you about
it $100. This should give you enough leverage to stick with
your fast.
2. Reassess Your Forum Usage Habits
Once you've completed the initial fasting period (and not
before), take a fresh look at your forum participation habits.
Imagine that you just discovered each forum today for the
first time. What are the pros and cons of participation?
Is this the best use of your time, or can you imagine something
better? If you're using forums to get specific information,
would it be better to simply read books, articles, or blogs?
If you're using them as a social outlet, would it be better
to join a local club and meet people face-to-face? Looking
back on your previous pattern of behavior, would you say
you were addicted? Did your usage pattern become unconscious?
If so, how do you intend to prevent that from happening again?
3. Clarify Your Expectations
If you decide to participate in online forums, clarify your
expectations. Whether you intend to use forums for market
research, to make new contacts, or as an outlet for your
humorous wit, get clear on why you're there.
4. Establish Reasonable Boundaries
To limit the risk of forum addiction, set clear boundaries
for yourself and write them down. You can limit the number
of times per week you check each forum, the total amount
of time you spend participating, or the number of posts you'll
allow yourself to make each week. Track your weekly usage
on a scrap of paper to keep yourself consciously aware of
your participation habits. Don't go dark and succumb to unconscious
habituation. Establish clear boundaries such that if you
cross them, you know you're at risk of falling into a pattern
of addiction. And if that ever happens, it's time to immediately
begin a new fasting period.
5. Let It Go
If you find yourself repeatedly succumbing to forum addiction
or other negative usage patterns, you may decide it's best
to simply do without. At the time of this writing, I no longer
regularly participate in any online forums or message boards.
When I clarified my intentions, I realized my #1 reason for
participation was to contribute and to help people. But using
forums as a contribution outlet was inefficient, since it
would too often lead to lengthy (and mostly unproductive)
debates. I found that sticking with one-to-many outlets like
writing articles and maintaining a blog were a much better
use of my time. Blog comments still allow some interactivity,
but the time required to manage them is reasonable and the
personal relevance of most blog comments is extremely high.
6. Replace Online Socialization With Face-to-Face Contact
Regarding the social aspect, online forums are a poor substitute
for meeting people in person. While there's certainly some
social benefit to forums - many people have met their spouses
in online forums, including me - it's important to physically
spend time with human beings instead of via a computer screen.
If you need a new social outlet, join a local club or association,
especially one that meets weekly. I found that when I joined
Toastmasters International and began attending meetings and
competing in speech contests, my interest in socializing
via online forums fell dramatically. Even the best online
communication pales in comparison to face-to-face, belly-to-belly
contact.
7. Be a Dabbler, Not a Fixture
Another tip is to treat forum participation as temporary.
If your goal is to make new business contacts, then dive
in and participate actively for a while, maybe 30-90 days.
Make new friends and contacts, collect private contact info,
and then abandon the forums. Continue to develop your new
relationships via one-to-one communication like email, phone
calls, and if possible, face-to-face meetings (such as at
industry conferences). Temporarily dabbling in many different
forums is a more effective way to build contacts than pushing
a single forum far beyond its usefulness.
You can also use the dabbling method to gather general information
on a subject. Seek out a number of relevant forums and bookmark
them. Then spend a few hours scanning each forum once every
six months to soak up the current wisdom. Whenever you have
a specific question, pop in and search the forum archives.
If searching turns up a blank, feel free to post a new message,
harvest the answers, and disappear.
8. Avoid Addiction
Online forums are tricky beasts. At the time of this writing,
my feeling is that ongoing daily participation in any single
forum for more than a few months is almost invariably unproductive.
Eventually the initial benefits like gaining knowledge and
making new contacts produce diminishing returns. And then
the negative effects like forum addiction set in. Regular
participation (even from unconscious habituation) will still
provide some benefits, but the longer you participate, the
less efficiently those benefits are realized.
Close cousins of forum addiction include online gaming addiction,
web surfing addiction, blog addiction, email addiction, and
news addiction. The common pattern is that unconscious habituation
overrides conscious, clear-headed decision-making. If you
ever find yourself with such an unproductive habit, take
steps to reassert conscious control. Use a period of fasting
to regain your perspective, reexamine your motives, set clear
boundaries, and find alternative outlets. Manage your forum
usage consciously to serve your goals, and avoid the trap
of addiction.
Online forums can be a powerful productivity tool, but self-awareness
and discipline are required to prevent them from becoming
a pitfall of procrastination.
Copyright © Steve Pavlina
Steve Pavlina
Personal Development for Smart People
http://www.stevepavlina.com
http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog (blog)
http://www.stevepavlina.com/articles (articles)
Steve is intensely growth-oriented. He trained in martial
arts, ran the L.A. Marathon, and graduated from college in
three semesters with two degrees. He can juggle, count cards
at blackjack, and make damn good guacamole. Steve is also
a polyphasic sleeper, sleeping just 2-3 hours per day and
only 20 minutes at a time. So chances are good that he's
awake right now.
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