When is it just too much?

Hutch Carpenter has a good overview of how to use social media so it doesn't overwhelm you. (Full post here.)

It was prompted by Erick Schonfeld who complained about information overload. (Full post here.)

There seems to be several stages of social media:

1. Lack of understanding. This is when you don't understand something and choose either to ignore it or criticize it.
2. Trial period. This is when you try it for a while either because you're genuinely curious or you don't want your teenage children to learn about this faster than you did. (Both reasons apply to me.)
3. Fascination. Those who find it useful then dive in and find out they've tapped into a new source of information and community.
4. Stop the fire hose. This is when it gets to be too much and you have feeds everywhere and information coming at you way too fast. This is what's happened to me at times. Each time I've sat back and carefully cut back various feeds to only the ones that truly provide me with new information or a perspective. I have found the most thoughtful people out there only post a few times a day. If you sub to a site run by an individual that is posting 30 times a day, unsubscribe. There is no way a single human can provide you with that many insights in a day. At least for free.
5. Recovery. This is when you've learned that social media is good. You just need to be selective.

And this final point is where Erick and Hutch seem to be today.