The internet is full of information. Sometimes it seems like an endless labyrinth you can’t help but get lost in. The morning routine of simply checking your email is a thing of the past. Now with Twitter, blogs, news sources, and wikis, it can literally take hours to catch up on what you’ve missed over night. No wonder our parents and other people from older generations feel like they’re too busy to deal with the new social media. I’m sure that I’m not the only one who has been accused by my not-as-social-media-obsessed friends of caring more about what’s happening on Twitter than them. So, how do you juggle all of this social media and still manage to have friends, a job, and a life? Let’s find out.

Take some time to use the original social media – your phone. Or even meet with friends in person! Since I follow many of my friends on Twitter, stalk them on Facebook, or read their blogs daily, I often feel like I know everything about them. False. Social media has “cyberized” our friends. We date online, we network online – we even At the rate we’re going, everything will be online. It’s important to call your friends or meet for coffee every so often – just to make sure they’re still human.

Set a schedule and stick to it. Set an amount of time and the time per day that you will use various types of social media. Literally pencil it in to your calendar. Write on your blog and respond to comments from 6pm-8pm. Maybe you can check Twitter while you watch those mindless shows on VH1 you enjoy so much (Sundays at 9pm, Twitter and Daisy of Love-athon). Or catch up on the blogs you follow on your coffee break. If you need to wake up early before work or class to make more time, so be it. If you fall off the wagon, don’t beat yourself up too much. It happens to the best of us.

Find time to escape. It’s important to remember that even though you could literally spend all day on your computer, it’s probably not healthy. Set time aside to work out, listen to music, read a book (remember those? The precursor to Kindle?). Make a date night with your friends where you don’t talk about anything relating to social media. Even turning if it means hiding your computer and phone (I know you have email, Facebook and Twitter on your Blackberry…), it’s necessary to retain some sanity. Sometimes the amount of information you look at online during the day can be a little overwhelming without you even realizing it. Give yourself a break to relax. Or brainstorm your next blog entry. It’s up to you.

Use an RSS feed reader. I just recently started using Google Reader, and found it a fabulous way to cut down on the time I spend looking at blogs, checking updates, and even on news sites. It keeps track of websites and blogs you subscribe to, all on one page. You can even see the articles that your friends share.

Keep a [paper] journal. Sometimes I feel like I need to document all of my thoughts through Tweets or blog entries. This isn’t necessarily so. I have lots of thoughts I’d like to keep private. Take some time to write about your day – what you had for breakfast, how you feel about a certain someone, etc – because your followers sure don’t care, believe me. I carry a small Moleskine around in my purse to jot things down when I’m bored, instead of immediately reaching for my phone to refresh Tweetberry. I find that scrapbooking can also be therapeutic. Even though my creativity tends to lie more in words, I like to paste little tidbits into my journal. Ticket stubs to a movie I enjoyed. A postcard I received from a friend in Europe. These kinds of mementos can’t be documented online.

These are just a few tips I thought of to keep you sane. If you have any others, please don’t hesitate to comment. While social media can be an obsession, it’s important to keep grounded and retain your sanity.

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This and other posts regarding social media and social networking can be found this month on the (not so simple) life, a community blog that brings together bloggers of differing views and opinions to discuss a common subject. Please feel free to visit and comment.

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