Losing time in technology: how hooked are we?

According to an ongoing study by Craig Smith: As of January 9, 2013, LinkedIn has reached 200 million users. Yes, 200 million. Aside from that, Facebook is up to one billion users, with millions of users on their mobile apps alone. Twitter is slightly farther behind with 500 million users, and YouTube completes the technology triangle with 800 million users and 4 BILLION views per day.

Get the idea? We're hooked.

See full statistics for ALL social media outlets here (some we haven't even heard of): http://expandedramblings.com/index.php/resource-how-many-people-use-the-top-social-media/

Have you ever found yourself lost in technology?Caught up in a back-to-back frenzy of social media? Whether you are on your iPhone or iPad (dangerous combo, most of the time, the two are found inseparable), it may go something like this: Facebook is typically top priority. Twitter gets into the mix (Instagram is a given), and then your email becomes intertwined eventually. Words with friends, YouTube and then you throw in texting? If you respond to a comment on Facebook, it's all downhill from there. It's a never ending cycle. You could literally lose hours in this vicious process. Have you ever gotten home and thought, "Yes! I have an hour and a half before I have to be ______!" It's 3:15PM.

You see that you have two text messages, three notifications on Facebook and several people have retweeted your latest blog post. Once you come up for air, it's nearly 4:30 and you're already late. How do we stop this madness? Is it possible? Or, is it obvious that this technology epidemic is only getting worse.

If you checked out the link to the various social media outlets, you'll see that some of those you haven't even heard of. Still thousands are accessing these resources to be used. While browsing twitter today, I saw a post from Buzzfeed that mentioned an app called: CouchCachet. This app allows you to manipulate your social media peeps by checking in to places while you're sitting on your couch eating popcorn!

Either way, social media is now succumbing to, well social media. While the heights to technology are accelerating each day, we are continuing to fall deeper and deeper into the trend. Is it a bad thing? Well, no. Am I guilty of this? Of course. But, is our face-to-face interaction lessening? ....is that even a question?

Our social time with friends is now layered with Snapchat sessions, mass text messaging, Skype and videos on YouTube. #hashtags are WAY too comfortable, FourSquare might become an olympic sport soon and "retweeting" is a common phrase. To say the least.

A reoccurring comment heard in a group of friends might be, "Oh look, everyone has their phones out, I guess I should get mine out too."

Sometimes it's nice to just shut it down. Silence the iPhone (and place it in another room.....under your bed, because we all know silencing doesn't do a thing), turn off your iPads and just relax. Have a conversation. Read a book. Open a REAL newspaper and remind yourself what it's like to flip through actual pages.

Every time I find myself lost in technology, I almost wish we could go back to dial-up Internet. No cell phones, post cards, pen pals and maybe even AOL instant messenger. Think about it, we still survived! However, now that we have been introduced to these technological luxuries, we have become reliant on them.

There are jobs created for them and some may even say they NEED them. So let me ask you this: If someone took away Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn and all of these "trending" social media resources today, would we survive tomorrow?

Or would it be as big of an ISSUE as health care reform...#thingstothingabout.