[This post was originally published on The Living Room Tumblr.]
My frequently-declared, rarely-adhered-to Twitter “hiatuses” have become, understandably, an object of mockery among my friends on Twitter. I have a long history of spending more time declaring “hiatuses” than actually sticking with them. #SelfControlPANIC! #TwitterAddictDOOM! 🙂
Definitionally, a “hiatus” is when I change my Twitter password to something unknown to me, thus locking myself out of web Twitter, and also disable my most commonly used apps (like Tweetbot). This forces me to reset my password (and then re-enable my apps) before I can effectively use Twitter again. That said, during a “hiatus,” I will still typically post a steady trickle of photos, Instagrams, Spotify tweets, etc. – those are allowed, because they are non-interactive when I can’t see replies and RTs, and thus they don’t open the door to Twitter becoming a massive time-sink, like it can when I get into conversations on it. (Plus, those occasional tweets keep my account “active,” dodging any unfollow scripts that track such things.)
But while the occasional Instagram isn’t incompatible with a “hiatus” as I define that term, it doesn’t typically take much to cause me to truly “cheat” on a hiatus – “temporarily” changing my password back to normal, re-enabling Tweetbot, etc., and resume “normal” tweeting – in order to post about a severe weather event somewhere in the country, a major (or somewhat major) bit of political news, a breaking conference-realignment story, or whatever. The excuses can be pretty flimsy. Sometimes, the only way you’d even notice that I was ever “on hiatus” is that I said so at some point (only to almost immediately “cheat” on my own self-imposed rules).
Lost in this running joke at my expense, however, is the fact that I actually did take a somewhat-successful hiatus last spring after March Madness, starting April 5. Here is what my tweets-per-day count looked like from March 25 through April 23. With the exception of April 15, when I took a “hiatus break” because of the massive tornado outbreak, I did pretty well:
I had somewhat less success with subsequent efforts at a “hiatus” through late April and early-mid May. Indeed, I completely gave up and called the hiatus off entirely during the first 10 days of May. But then, after going crazy live-tweeting the Colorado civil unions debacle (indeed, I tweeted so much on May 8-9 that I got sent to Twitmo, leading to the birth of @BrendanInTwitmo), I went on a new hiatus for a brief while. Here’s another fun chart that I made last year:
If you do the math, I published 450 tweets in the 33 days that fall within either of the “hiatus” periods, April 5-29 (hiatus #1) or May 11-18 (hiatus #2). That’s 13.6 tweets per day. It drops to 4.4 per day if you include only the days between April 6-21 and May 11-18, and if you also exclude the April 15 tornado. But that’s some #FuzzyMath right there.
By contrast, if you include the in-between “non-hiatus” period from April 30-May 10, the grand total is 1,866 tweets in 44 days, or 42.4 per day. That doesn’t sound like much of a “hiatus,” though it’s still well below my long-term average of ~115 tweets per day since my 50,000th tweet in September 2011.
I mention all of this by way of introduction to my latest hiatus – and my latest “pool.” I’ve decided to do another post-March Madness spring Twitter hiatus. I’ve got a busy month ahead, and I need to set aside the distraction of Twitter for a while. So, starting Wednesday, April 10 (the day after the women’s NCAA championship game), and continuing through Thursday, May 9, I intend to take a month-long hiatus.
My past failures at following through on such plans invites the concept of the “pool.” It’s a simple prediction contest. The question is: How many tweets will I post during that 30-day period, from April 10 through May 9 (inclusive)? Leave your guess in comments, and try to earn – well, maybe not Eternal Glory, but at least some temporary bragging rights, and the ability to make fun of me. 🙂
The deadline to make your prediction is 11:59 11:00 PM Mountain Time on Tuesday, April 9. Some ground rules: the number of tweets will be calculated from midnight on April 10 through 11:59pm on May 9, all times Mountain. Tweets from all of my Twitter accounts, including @brendanloy, @MileHighMids, @BrendanInTwitmo, and any other accounts that I own or may create in the interim, will count toward the total. Here on this Tumblr, I will post the pertinent accounts’ totals as of midnight April 10 when the hiatus starts, and again on May 10 after the hiatus is over. The winner will be the person closest to the correct number, regardless of whether they are over or under. (No “Price is Right” rules.) In the event of a tie, the person who posted his or her prediction earlier will win.
By way of context, to help you arrive at your prediction, here are the 30-day totals that the above-stated averages would yield:
Long-term, non-hiatus average (115 tweets per day): 3,450
Last year’s entire April 5-May 18 period (42.4 per day): 1,272
Last year’s “hiatus #1” and “hiatus #2” (13.6 per day): 408
Last year’s “successful” hiatus days (4.4 per day): 132
So, what’s your prediction?
UPDATE, 11pm Wednesday: The polls are CLOSED. Thirty-eight people (!) entered the #HiatusPool. Here are the predictions:
@thrashsoundly: 1,730
@Jamie1999: 1,729
@Nyghtewynd: 1,700
@mamatoes: 1,334
@kesgarnder: 1,200
@AirborneGeek: 999
@KennyOcker: 874
@dinunziodjd: 777
@kevinheaslip: 750
@ecalof: 731
@joeboo22: 669
@davidkreutz: 666
@mjbtompkins: 617
@tmiller2462: 574
@BHartyNMSU: 573
@RealDSean: 551
Matt Wiser: 511
@KevinInABQ: 490
@Iwasrun: 460
@jamesdrygoods: 444
@chrispalm: 433
@MileHighBecky: 419
Mike Wiser: 387
@emande: 380
@RhettLButler: 376.5
@skyvan: 360
@Lord_Chadeous: 345
@thejoshknight: 319
@elephande: 314
Joan Tinker: 292
@EricStrobel: 270
@albolte: 267
Me: 200
@esqcapades: 180
@mpusatera: 94
@pthread: 42
@AngleScott: 2
@KristySez: 0*
*The only way this happens is North Korea hits us with an EMP tonight. #PANIC #DOOM
FINAL UPDATE: Here are my official “before” tweet counts for all of my active accounts:
@brendanloy: 107,024
@MileHighMids: 11,436
@brendanintwitmo: 141
@stapletontower: 62
TOTAL: 118,663
That total will be compared to the total as of 11:59:59pm on May 9 to determine the official number of tweets during the planned #hiatus period.
And now, I’m going to change my Tumblr password, and log off this thing as well. Already changed my Facebook password. Social Media Hiatus, commence!