140 Steps To Cure Your Social Networking Addiction

12 steps are clearly not enough to address the ravages of Social Networking Addiction. With mobile phones placing Twitter and Facebook in our pockets, and everyone we ever associated with from grade school to grad school now friending and tweeting us 24/7 with all things arcane, mundane and inane, it is virtually impossible to escape the allure of the drug we call "Social Networking." 12 Steps - the traditional guiding principles outlining a course of action for recovery - may work for substance abuse, but they can't hold a ceremonial candle to the substantial abuse that is Social Networking addiction.

YOUR INVITATION FOR HELP

For several years now the staff at INVITATIONS, the Nation's Premiere Social Networking Recovery facility, have recognized that the original 12 steps were challenged when it comes to Social Media. For example, Step 8, "Make a list of all the persons we harmed with our addiction..." was great until Twitter added the new LISTS feature. Once our patients started using Twitter Lists to create lists of the folks their addiction affected "Step 8" lost some of its healing luster. As if that wasn't enough of a challenge, patients who thought @Scobleizer was their higher power were devastated when he went and unfollowed everyone, cutting the cult of Scoble off at the knees. We may be able to admit we are powerless over Social Networking and that our lives have become unmanageable, but we need more than 12 steps to lead us to the light. We need 140 steps to cure Social Networking Addiction, and we need your help to develop them.

STEP UP AND ADD A STEP!

Who better to develop a 140 step program than the folks who will benefit the most from it. Who better to define the cure than those suffering from the disease. Who better to help me come up with 140 clever and witty steps to a clean, social networking free existence than those whose very existence is dominated by social media. That's right, YOU!

If you are in need of Social Networking Rehab, you can join in and help us create the definitive 140 Step Program. Please add your suggested step in the comments. Between now and the end of the year we will be collecting, reviewing and testing your steps on the patients at INVITATIONS. Then, in January 2010, we will ring in the New Year by publishing an eBook detailing "140 Steps To Cure Your Social Networking Addiction" with the best of your submissions.

What steps are you taking to cure your Social Networking habit??? Please share them in the comments and you will have the chance to be included in the eBook next year! If you have friends who are addicted (and you know you do) please share this and ask them to contribute their "Steps" too!

UPDATE: We have released a new PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT video, with some steps recommended by some of you at a recent Miami TweetUp.

Photo Credit: © chinti - Fotolia.com