Have you been successful at curbing your social networking in the past?

I’m not sure it’s an issue. You spend your time as you choose, and if you choose to be online, why do you question your choice?

Since you’re on my Facebook, you should know that I’m not very good at avoiding social networking. I do spend an absurd amount of time online, whether from my phone or on my PC, but I don’t neglect other aspects of my life to do it. I just have very few responsibilities at this point in time.
However, if you think that it’s interfering with your life, then yes, I think it is a healthy decision. I can see how it would be really tough.

At my old q&a site, Answerbag, I didn’t have the self-control or self-discipline to stay away from that place so I could easily and more efficiently focus on more important, high-priority things. I eventually just asked a community leader to place me in the penalty box for a few weeks. That way, I couldn’t participate on the site at all and for me personally, it was easy to resist the urge to create another account.

Unlike then, it is a lot easier for me to pull away from this site now without that extra assistance, but I understand that sometimes during certain periods in our life, we rely heavily on online communities as being apart of our everyday life, especially once it’s a routine we’ve gotten use to and once we’ve interacted with people that we’ve really grown to like and/or admire.

If balance is what you are trying to achieve, perhaps a break by deleting your account for a week or so would be a good start or work on only limiting yourself to participating here an hour a day or so.
But I think this really all depends on how you feel. Do you feel that the amount of time you spend on here is healthy or unhealthy for you? If you don’t feel it is unhealthy, then don’t worry about it, but perhaps you just need to work on having better time management skills.
I know a lot of people have a stance that spending too much time on the internet is unhealthy, but I think it ultimately depends on what you’re doing online. Communities like these can actually be really healthy and helpful for a lot of people. It all depends on your wants and needs. If this is something you feel you need, then don’t deprive yourself of it – but like I said, maybe focus your attention more on time management. :)

There was one point about 3 years ago when I was starting to worry that I might be getting addicted to various social sites. It just so happened that that period coincided with my going to New Orleans for ten days to volunteer with rebuilding efforts. Ten days with no internet access whatsoever was easier than I thought it would be, and it’s since been much easier for me to rein in my online habits once I realize I’m starting to spend more time on them than I should be. So if you think you are spending too much time on those sites than you are comfortable with, my advice would be to find away to prevent yourself from having internet access – like volunteering, getting out of the house by exercising or taking a walk, arranging to meet up with a friend, stuff like that. It’s much easier if your access to those things is made much more difficult.

Social networking keeps boredom at bay, it doesn’t replace anything more important. It’s ebay I need help with!!

It certainly can take up a lot of time for me, an interesting day on Fluther will lose me hours. I didn’t grow up with the internet, however, yeah, I’m that old so walking away isn’t that difficult. I do notice, though, that I don’t spend nearly as much time when I’m not posting, just reading through stuff and catching up on a bit of news.
Then, of course, there are the times that I can’t seem to get my ass out of this chair and I sit here Neffing and Neffing… ;-)

I never felt the need to curtail.

All exceot Fluther. I’m addicted.

Challenge yourself. Try going for a week, after the week is up see if you can do another. It gets easier as you go.

I am doing well with Facebook. I was on for a bit last night and have only checked it a few times today (for minutes at a time), so, that’s good.

@Jude good job. Nothing wrong with baby steps. :)