I was just reading this [German] article by Berlin über journalist Markus Albers about how he was forced to detox from Twitter, e-mail & co. while on vacation. These kinds of articles (and books) are riding a twitter thermal to great heights in Germany and, as Markus’ column and this blog entry show, are creating their own echo chamber. Everyone’s talking about how good it is to get away from social media.

Or at least, people who can remember the ‘70s are.

For my part, social media adds a certain rhythm to my work, the way the tap of a bat on muddy cleats belongs to the rhythm of baseball or the drone of air traffic control provides a stilted soundtrack for pilots. As a freelancer, I’m forced to multi-task. I write an article. Translate a few pages of an employee magazine. Do some research for the next article and write a half-dozen emails to various clients. And that’s before lunch.

Social media provides a little buffer in there. A biscuit to clear my mental palate between vintages. When I finish one piece of work, I browse this feed. Giggle at that comment. Follow a link. And when I realize I’ve caught up, I minimize Tweetdeck and turn to my to-do list. Rinse and repeat until it’s 1800 (or earlier if I have to get the kids, but then it just kicks back in once they go to bed).

This routine is difficult. It takes a lot of concentration for a kid who’s used his semi-smarts his whole life to avoid concentration. Clients don't want to hear my cute excuses the way third-grade teachers and college professors would. Clients want results. They want me to concentrate. The social media aspect, the communication overload, gives me a power nap. It allows me to unconcentrate (de-concentrate?).

But back to Markus’ article. He talks about how creative he felt without all that information coming at him, as if the inability to connect to a WLAN or get a few bars on his cellphone had created his own private Walden Pond. Well, a Walden Pond with a wife and baby.

And it made me think about my weekends. For years I’ve avoided my computer on Saturday and Sunday. I don’t want to sit down at the desk and push ‘on’. I can’t bring myself to hit the ‘mail’ button in my cellphone. I feel I’ve let myself down if I do it. My father often emails Friday evenings and is annoyed by the time he sends a second on Sunday. “Can you please answer my last e-mail?” Lately, I’ve been thinking I do it to cater to my shy streak – I use the excuse of a weekend to avoid and deflect. I was starting to think I should actually see what the digital world has to offer on, say, a Sunday afternoon. I should respond to an e-mail or two.

But Marcus made me realize my weekends offline were my brain’s own way of pulling back. I need the weekends to reflect. I use the time to mull and devise ways of dealing with everything that comes at me during the week – Mondays I shoot off a flurry of emails that go sailing out of my Asus laptop like so many racing pigeons let out of their artificial roost for some early morning exercise. And I’ve even launched a new project or two during my first coffee of the week.

This echo chamber of anti-social-media is partially a changing of the generational guard in Germany’s media blotter and partially an examination of social media’s place in our lives. I really enjoy social media. I’m glad to know what my friends are doing. And I like seeing what others I don’t really know are up to (like Markus). And I like taking part in my own life.

So I’m sorry if I miss your weekend status updates.