Out of his seemingly lax schedule (but it isn't), trials came to our awkward superhero in the form of virtual reality. For the dirty-minded, these are not naked bodies moving their arses on a cold winter's night like there's no such thing as pneumonia. Pete did not see these virtual realities as enemies at first. They were in fact, seen as acquaintances, very useful acquaintances. Let us hide their identities and assign them a secret name: social networking sites.
Social networking sites such as Plurk, Facebook, and Twitter have a good intent of making the world a smaller place. It is within these portals where a human interact and catch up with former friends, classmates, and limbo rock playmates without necessarily seeing them physically. That should be good, right? The only problem is when one does the connecting when one should be working instead. It's not an open secret that Facebook eats up a large part of the productivity pie.
Our protagonist, Prince Pete, had a weak spot for these sites. For every minute he spent writing an urgent article, he spent 2 minutes updating his profile page.
Meet Enemy number 1
Prince Pete Versus Plurk
Pete was working one morning on a linkbuilding task which required him to email contacts. He could not recall what the email address of one of his prospects are. He remembered that the prospect posts his email address on the personal account page. Fortunately for Pete, they're Plurk buddies. He skimmed down to the prospect's page and found what he was looking for.
But then, his eyes were glued to the prospect's status messages. They were too juicy to ignore.
Status Message 1: 10 funniest animals in the whole world. Click here.
Status Message 2: Britain's Prince Charles plays patintero. Click here.
Status Message 3: See sexy photos of Angelina Jolie. Click here.
Status Message 4: Brad Pitt courts Kris Aquino. Click here.
Pete was mesmerized with all the messages and decided to click all the links. Before he knew it, one hour is already lost.
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| Tip Number 12: Leave the Country |
Meet Enemy number 2
Prince Pete Versus Facebook
As a royalty, it is Prince Pete's responsibility to update all his subjects of the daily court proceedings. The good prince that he is, Pete always updates his Facebook status messages (because every stalker must know where Pete is at the moment). Facebook took advantage of that responsibilty and lured Pete into its euphoric clutches.
Pete was writing, "Let it be known unto all subjects that tomorrow is a holiday".
As he was about to log out, his eyes caught the status messages of his fellow royalties and friends.
HS Basketball VIP: Today's my sex change operation. Afraid!
Former Crush: Happy Birthday to my loving husband. I have a surprise to you in bed tonight! Mwahugs. Chup chup chup
College Cum Laude: Sharpen Knife. Kill boss later
Mr Friendly wrote on Classmate 1's wall: Happy Birthday! Give me free lunch.
Mr Friendly wrote on Classmate 2's wall: Happy Birthday. Classmate 1 will buy me lunch. You buy me dinner.
"Enough!." Pete shouted in his mind. An hour has already passed. It's 11:30 AM and his task is due at noon. "I must log out right now."
A Facebook Chat message suddenly appeared on the screen:
"Eowh powhzz... Muztah nah yu powhzz?? 8 nah yu? jejejejeje...."
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| A line that is more effective in a soap opera |
Meet Enemy number 3
Prince Peter Versus Twitter
He thought he had already conquered the procrastination brought by the social networking sites. Twitter had him at the last blow. His mobile phone beeped and showed this message:
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| Your Twitter has an afterlife too! |
Interesting read! He followed the link and read the 10,000 word article. While doing so, he was chatting with his aunt on Yahoo Messenger and videochatting with his cousin in Canada. He was also downloading the latest pirated movie through torrent. Plus he uploaded on multiply the vacation pictures he promised his fellow backpackers while all the time his feet is trying to solve a Rubik's cube.
The kingdom's alarm bell rang. The clock said the time is 6PM but he had not finished any project yet! 6 hours of nothing just disappeared into nothing. It's an unproductive day for Pete.
He couldn't contain it any longer. He wanted to throw the computer away. He must make a drastic act fast.
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Moral of the story: While you are working on an important task, turn off all social networking notifications. Close Plurk, Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, etc... for your own good. They not only eat your time, they also eat your company's and school's resources.
Oh. before I forgot, let me promote this post on twitter...
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