You Might Be Addicted to Social Media If…

Social media is a great tool for connecting with people, promoting your business and just plain socializing. You can learn great tips ranging from which gadgets best suit your lifestyle to how to make a great sandwich. If you’ve got a quirky interest, there’s probably someone else (possibly dozens, even hundreds) out there with that same quirky interests.

Yes, some people see social media as a time waster, a useless popularity contest and a distraction from the important things in life. But it’s fun and has a lot of practical businesses as well. Of course, you can get carried away with it so, in the tradition of Jeff Foxworthy’s “You might be a redneck…” here are some fun indicators that you or someone you know might be addicted to social media:

• You have to carry an extra set of business cards with you – just to list all the social media communities you belong to.
• An attractive person walks by and you whisper to your friends “wow, I’d like to friend him/her on Facebook.”
• You refer to your friends from Twitter by their @ username when you talk to them in person.
• You send out twice as many e-cards at Christmastime to your social media friends as you send real cards to people you’ve met in person.
• You own a t-shirt that says either “Tweet this!” or “Digg this!”
• You wake up extra early to be the first one in your online circle of friends to wish everyone a good morning.
• You subscribe to 100 RSS feeds and 100 channels on Youtube just so you can be the first to post a link to the next viral meme.
• You choose your friends based on their Twinfluence.
• You suffer from updates withdrawal when you run to the grocery store and forget your iPhone at home.
• You stopped driving in to work and started taking the train just so you can continue to post updates during that otherwise wasted time.
• You have a tickler file titled “cool status updates.”
• You’re seeing someone to help you with on-line/off-line life balance.
• You’ve created multiple accounts in the same community and each one has taken on a personality of its own.
• You have nightmares about your account getting locked out.
• You run into people at the supermarket that recognize you from social media.
• The microphone on your cell phone stops working but it takes you over a week to realize it.
• Your entire online profile is based on a character you created in grade school.
• You know at least three people in each major city throughout the world.
• You have a tattoo with your Twitter username or myspace url on it.
• All your emails and text messages are 140 characters or less – out of habit.
• When you don’t post an update on your status for 24 hours, you get 100 messages asking if you’re okay.
• You find it to be a traumatic experience when someone stops following your updates on Twitter.
• People offer you money to post a link to their web site.
• You created your own Ning network and are migrating everyone to it.

Have some more? Add a comment and include a link to your favorite social media profile.