David Christopher« Do you suffer from Social Anxiety Disorder (S.A.D)? »
Have you ever been down the pub with a group of friends and interrupted a flowing conversation to answer that beep from your smartphone informing you that someone has commented on your latest Facebook status?
Maybe you have been having dinner with your family at a nice restaurant and excused yourself for the fourth time blaming it on a weak bladder because you needed to check what has been happening in your Twitter stream; a weak bladder that only manifested itself at the same time as getting your first smartphone?
Or maybe you were watching a film at the cinema and noticed a flashing coming from the hand where you are gripping your smartphone tightly, whilst your girlfriend squeezed the other hand harder and harder giving you that "don't even think about it" look?
If any of these sound familiar to you then you could have Social Anxiety Disorder (or S.A.D for short).
S.A.D is a serious disease that is spreading fast around the globe and now starting to spread to the workplace as companies start to adopt social technologies to collaborate.
If we don't act now this could turn into a worldwide epidemic!
If you already do any of the following then it could already be too late for you....
- You cannot resist the temptation to text, instant message, tweet, or generally converse via your smartphone than watch the 238 slide PowerPoint presentation on how this weeks strategy could increase the company margin tenfold
- You give colleagues your twitter username when they ask for your email address
- You suggest "I'll Friend you on Facebook" when you meant to say "lets do lunch"
- You restrict your emails to 140 characters
- You keep a running count of the colleagues you know
- You host twitter chats instead of telephone conferences
- You prefix forwarded emails with RT
- You spend 10 minutes trying to find the Like button of a document uploaded onto your intranet site
- You refuse to talk to a colleague you don't know without a verbal introduction from one of their team members
- You first hear that your boss has left the company via their updated LinkedIn profile
For me it's already too late....but hopefully my suffering hasn't been in vain and this blog post helps you identify the signs before Social Anxiety Disorder (S.A.D) takes another life.
Reader Comments (8)
very funny! I might start doing this anyway! 4.You restrict your emails to 140 characters
Wait til you get to the later stages, your e-mail will wither up entirely and you'll run out the room if the presentation isn't on Slideshare. And I thought that was what LinkedIn was for...
Oh, i think SAD is just a manifestation of real life "anxiety" / loneliness. People who are anxious in their life bring the same personality to the online world.
Just my 2 cents :)
@amy go on, i dare you! There is far too much email waste in the world anyway ;-)
@russell Thx for your comment - I am starting to get the shakes just thinking about it.
@ashvini Thx for your comment - Maybe that's true that it is a manifestation of real life / loneliness. However I think my wife is the exceptional to the rule. She is a happy, outgoing person with lots of friends, yet still cannot resist checking her smartphone every time she hears that beep. Though she she does label herself as a geeky mummy...
Many people don't call it as a Social Anxiety or Phobia, they think it's only a shyness. But maybe someday they will eventually overcome their fear in getting along with the crowd or having a simple conversation to other people.
You really don't need to push a person to go out in a crowd if he or she has some social phobia. They need some treatment and medications.