I have to come to realize that over the last few years, the Internet has had a profoundly corrosive effect on my professional output and occasionally even my emotional health.
This effect has been especially severe in two areas: social media and email, both of which basically constituted my consent to being easily and directly available to contact by anyone with an Internet connection. In Twitter’s case, that contact has also been fully public, which means that anyone with a Twitter account has been able to see and share any conversation I’ve had with people outside of direct messages.
As of today, I am withdrawing that consent by getting off social media and curtailing my availability via email.
Late last year, I got so tired of the constant necessity to curate my Facebook feed and the drama resulting from pruning my Friends list that I pulled the plug for good and deleted my account. In the seven months since then, I have not missed it, and beyond a few concerned messages from long-time Facebook acquaintances, my absence has been inconsequential to the world and a lot less aggravation and anxiety in my life. Last night, I deleted my Twitter account as well, for slightly different reasons that boil down to the strong feeling that it will have a similar life-improving consequence.
My Twitter account shows that I’ve posted over 20,000 Tweets over the last 11 years. Even allowing for the old 180-character limit, that’s three or four novels’ worth of words I’ve put out there for free, much of it to entertain people who don’t know me personally, and who mostly won’t notice my departure. Twitter, like Facebook before it, has been a useful tool to stay in touch with colleagues in an easy way, a digital watercooler I was visiting during the day to take breaks. But I can’t count the number of times something in my feed made me angry, upset, or anxious. We all have different ways to deal with these emotions. My wife, for example, will get mad at something and then forget all about it within five minutes and move on with her day. I’m the type whose anger or anxiety will simmer for a good while, affecting the rest of my day. To put it bluntly: I can no longer allow anyone with a smartphone and a data plan the potential ability to darken my day or interrupt my work by trying to pick an argument or fill my Twitter feed with aggravating stuff. Most emails and Twitter interactions with fans have been fun and positive, but there have been exceptions. And even the well-meaning emails from happy readers take a slice out of my writing time.
In addition to the emotional effects, social media and its constant attention-seeking stream of pop-ups and notifications are constantly threatening my productivity. Social media has been a great tool for me to have fun and make new contacts, but on the whole, I have accepted that it is also a distraction and a major impediment to my ability to focus.
There is research out there that shows the deep focus necessary to produce creative work is easily interruptible, and once broken, it takes on average ten to twenty minutes for the brain to re-engage with the work fully and get back into that deep focus. That means every time I looked at an incoming email notification or checked Twitter or Instagram, I basically put the brakes on the work in front of me. Half a dozen interruptions during my productive work time will fragment it to the point where I struggle to get anything down onto the page. When I don’t get my word count in for the day, I get anxious, and the sort of anxiety that results from feeling unproductive has a cumulative effect for me. One ruined work day can easily snowball into a ruined work week, and a few months down the road, a blown deadline (and let’s not even mention the sort of anxiety caused by that, because there’s actual household-sustaining money attached to that deadline.)
I know that this will upset people who have enjoyed the ability to get in touch with me easily. But if I engage in Twitter banter and email exchanges all day long, my productive output will slow down to a trickle. A very smart friend of mine once taught me an important lesson about finances and time, and that is that your only finite resource is your time. You can always make more money, but you cannot create more time. I’ve already been in the habit of exchanging my money for more time–paying someone else to mow my lawn or plow and shovel snow instead of having to do it myself, for example–and this is just further safeguarding of my remaining time. I am less than three years away from 50, and if I don’t watch out, I’ll be pushing 60 and realizing that I spent three quarters of my creative time doing little creative work.
Going forward, I will only check my email in the afternoons and evenings, when my productive time is over, and I will only reply to emails that absolutely require a response. That means messages from my agent and editors, close friends and colleagues, and people that have an ongoing business or collaboration relationship with me. People who need to reach me directly and immediately are few and far between, and all of them have the number to my personal phone and the ability to send me a text message. If you have a professional request and need to contact me, please direct your inquiry to my agent Evan Gregory at agent@ethanellenberg.com. But be advised that going forward, I will have to be highly selective about doing book blurbs or attending conventions (which tend to take a full week out of my productive time because I can’t work at conventions or while traveling.)
I really appreciate all the fan mail and social media messages I have received over the years, but I simply cannot take the time to keep reading them all, much less replying, or I will be doing that all day instead of writing novels. (And much of the fan mail I have received can be summed up as “Love your work, when is the next book coming out?” I’m sure everyone involved will be much happier if I get the books out faster instead of responding to emails more quickly. Even a form “thank you” response takes a minute out of my day and fifteen minutes out of my focus.)
Some of you may have read Neal Stephenson’s policy on this subject, and if this reads a lot like what he had to say far more eloquently a few years ago, I can only say that he’s a smarter man than I am, and that he has come to the same conclusion much earlier than I did. But I am–thankfully–still able to learn, and willing to adjust my habits.
I will still update this blog, but only when I have something of value to say, and I will no longer enable comments. Please do not feel slighted. It will hopefully result in a better and more productive writing output, which will make me–and hopefully my readers–happier in the long run than the dopamine ping of a “liked” Tweet or a comment reply. And I hope you will understand why I have to take these measures to safeguard my creative time and ensure I can keep writing novels for your enjoyment.
