Facebook has been the hugest time suck I’ve ever experienced. I haven’t even watched TV in months, I feel like I never have time to do the things I should be doing, and I get antsy if I can’t check it at least a few times a day.

~ Anonymous friend

Have you seen enough cat pictures? Tired of all the privacy leaks? Or do you just want to recoup the time that you lose captivated by people you don’t really even like?

You want to take a Facebook break, but you’re not sure how. A report published Feb. 5 by the Pew Internet & American Life Project shows 61% of Facebook users have taken a break from using the social networking site at some point. If so many people can take a Facebook break, then why not you?

But leaving Facebook?  Yes, it sounds insane. To hear some folks considering it, the idea of leaving Facebook is akin to leaving Earth. If you can’t bring yourself to deactivate your account right away, you can ease yourself into a Facebook break by limiting your interaction with the site.

A great starting point is the notifications. Do you really want to know when a friend-of-a-friend’s Aunt Lulu comments on a puppy photo you commented on in 2010? You don’t need a text message or email about that. If you look through the notifications, you’ll see that you can live without a lot of them.

Of course, you’ll want to be notified about friend requests, but more important: you want to be notified when you’ve been tagged in a photo or a post. You don’t want the idiot friend who doesn’t follow the What-Stays-In-Vegas Rule to tag you in the pics of the fur bikini mechanical bull riding contest that you won in 2006.

If you want to further limit your Facebook interactions, delete the app from your phone. You’ll be amazed at how freeing this is. No badges, no buzzes. You’ll find your phone is plenty entertaining without it.

After you have limited the notifications and deleted the app, you’ll probably feel like something’s missing — like you’re not wearing pants. That will pass. You’ll soon find a sense of calm and quiet. At this point, you might find deactivating your account isn’t so hard. Try just one week.  At the end of that week, see how you feel. You may be surprised to find you feel relieved.

Why would I feel relieved?

Because you wouldn’t constantly be responding to a website.

Let’s face it: Social media carries an obligation. If we’re logged on, we are required to respond. It’s like if you’re at a party, you’re required to interact. Facebook is a 24/7/365 party. And sometimes you need to leave the party.

That’s not to say that you can never go back. But when you do, you’ll probably have a different perspective about what you share and with whom you’re sharing. This is healthy. We need to revisit how we interact on social media from time to time so that the sites — Facebook, Twitter, Google+ — don’t completely legislate what we share, how we share it and with whom we share. Taking a break from Facebook (or any social media) allows us to step back from the maddening crowd and think for ourselves — without the coercion of an unapologetic algorithm or the noise of a 24/7/365 party.

EARLIER: How Lady Gaga helped me get off Facebook

March 13 marked another day when the media would report, report, report something that was wrong, wrong, wrong.

For those of you stuck in a cave for the past 12 hours, Argentine Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio was elected the Catholic Church’s 266th pope. His selection marks a lot of firsts: the first Jesuit, the first from the Americas, the first to take the name Francis.

Cardinal Bergoglio is now Pope Francis.

He is NOT Pope Francis I.

Why not?

Because to be Pope Francis I, you have to have a Pope Francis II. Like to be Mr. Elmo McButterpants Sr., you gotta have a Elmo McButterpants Jr.

Get it? No?

The Vatican spokesman confirms my point.

From CTV:

He will be called simply Francis, without a Roman numeral. Rev. Federico Lombardi, a Vatican spokesman, said it will become Francis I only “after we have a Francis II.”

 
But everyone on TV is calling him Pope Francis I!
 
I don’t give a shit what everyone on TV is doing. Television reporting is regularly wrong because they’re even worse about “speed to market” than us other clowns in media. Remember 2006′s Sago mine disaster? And the bad coverage that mushroomed from that? Or how about something more recent  – like the Supreme Court ruling on the federal health care law?

In big stories such as these, it’s better to stop for a second — or five — really think about what you’re broadcasting before hitting the publish button.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, a splinter from my soap box has stuck in my ass. This concludes today’s Crabby Editor Lecture.

Reblogged from VentureBeat:

• 

And it's here: BringGoogleReaderBack.com.

The great thing about geeks is that they are smart, fast, and have the power to create stuff instantly. Like BringGoogleReaderBack.com, which was published just a few hours ago and already has 931 tweets. Or like KeepGoogleReader.com, a petition to keep Google Reader that already has 2,454 digital signatures.

Some may think that that it's…

Read more… 67 more words

USA TODAY’s new “partner,” Newser, submitted blog post about Atlantic‘s roundup of retired candy heart messages.

FAX ME

LET’S READ

HEP CAT

WHY NOT

 
I remember “WHY NOT” and “GROOVY,” but not the others. Which ones do you remember?

Click the photo featuring my awesome headline to read the story.

Wonder what the FCC will have to say about that?

UPDATE: Joe Flacco calls cold-weather Super Bowls ‘retarded’

(H/T to Slam Dunks for the reminder.)

About six months ago, I tripped on a running shoe and stepped on the case of my MacBook Pro, cracking the glass. The MacBook was less than a year old at the time, and a repair through Apple was going to cost me more than I wanted to spend.

I’m going to fix it myself!

Years ago, I was a systems analyst, which was a fancy name for a girl geek who did everything from software training to server upkeep. I also maintained more than 50 laptops for a national news organization, so I had seen my share of abused laptops; they usually weren’t mine, though. If I had cracked my display in 2003, I would have fixed it myself. So why not now?

I did some googling, found a place that sells MacBook glass, bought the panel, a tool kit and a special suction cup. Then I let all that shit sit in the Amazon boxes for three months — until the other day when I got up the nerve to do the repair.

I watched a couple of YouTube videos that explained the complications of replacing the displays on the Unibody models, and I finally settled on one by Small Dog Electronics, an Apple reseller and Mac repair shop in Waitsfield, Vt. The tech in the video was clear, concise and careful. She was precise in her message, explaining this was not a beginner’s repair and urging caution and patience. She was right; it was not. Although I succeeded in replacing my glass panel, I did not need to replace the LCD — and if I had, I’m not sure whether I would have attempted it. If you do, and if you’re thinking of replacing it yourself, heed the advice of Small Dog Electronics and consider having a pro do it. Watch the video, which has a second part, and see for yourself.
 

Thanks, GetGlue!

I finally got to see Zero Dark Thirty this weekend. It was a long time coming; I thought more screens in the D.C. area would have had it sooner than the nationwide release. When it finally did arrive, the shows were sold out. Until I could see it, I read about the real-life CIA operative the film is based on. The news stories were just as juicy as the script.

Without giving away any plot points — even though we all know how it ends — here are a couple of thoughts on my second-most-anticipated film of the year.

• The suspect they were questioning in the first act looked a lot like Paul Rudd. It was distracting. (“No one should waterboard Paul Rudd! He’s too cute!”)
• Jessica Chastain was very good, but she wasn’t transformed. Meryl Streep she’s not.
• NOBODY’S hair could look that good in the desert. Ever.

Reblogged from VentureBeat:

Social TV service Viggle will no longer be purchasing one of its big competitors, GetGlue, according to a blog post from GetGlue founder Alex Iskold yesterday.

GetGlue is a check-in service that lets users note when they're doing something entertaining like reading, watching TV or movies, playing video games, and more. The service would have merged with New York-based Viggle in a deal that was estimated at…

Read more… 186 more words

 
At the time of this writing, the “There You Are, Part I” spot, published on YouTube on Oct. 14, 2012, had 7,226,692 views, 13,049 likes and 6,572 dislikes.

RELATED: From March 2011 — Keira Knightley’s Coco Madamoiselle ad

5:17 p.m. UPDATE: The NRA has released a statement.

In explaining their silence, the pro-gun-rights group says:
 

Out of respect for the families, and as a matter of common decency, we have given time for mourning, prayer and a full investigation of the facts before commenting.

 
A news conference is set for Dec. 21. USA TODAY has a story here.
 
BEGIN ORIGINAL POST: As the National Rifle Association remains conspicuous in absence following the Sandy Hook shootings, more media are dissecting the pro-gun-rights group’s strategy of silence as calls for more gun regulations mount.

From USA TODAY’s Chuck Raasch and Kevin Johnson: NRA is mum amid calls for change after Newtown shootings.

(Disclosure: I worked on this story prior to publication.)

The Associated Press (via the Christian Science Monitor) has their own take, asking: No NRA tweets or comments: A savvy tactic or mistake?

Finally, the NPR looks at what we the media got wrong in the first horrific hours of the unfolding tragedy, a series of mistakes that can be partly blamed on the speed-to-market directives that power digital journalism but may also have been rooted in sloppy sourcing and a failure to adhere to the journalistic basics of who, what, where, when and why.

EDITOR’S NOTE: The views expressed here are mine and not my employer’s.