Go slow! For a healthier lifestyle...

Hurry up! A common phrase. Everywhere, via evey-technological-thing, things are moving at apace.

'What? You mean I have to wait 45 seconds to download from the Bay of Pirates?...'

Too often daily life is spent racing around. So if you feel like life is taking you for too fast a ride, there is hope this week until 4th May in the form of Slow Down London, a project to inspire Londoners to find ‘a saner pace of life.’
SDL's emphasis is on slower distractions: slow music and arts; meditation, yoga; slow food; 'slow travel' (hmmm have you travelled London to York lately?); to slow debates about time and pace; and finally finding your own (slow) way to challenge our culture and need for speed.

So we’re moving too fast? Consuming too much information? One could claim that we have hit an information epidemic – imposed by a need for diversionary distractions, at an en mass and on-demand rate.

SDL is suggestive of a need for cultural change as lifestyles get caught up in the constant circulation of social information and being pressures to be in the loop. In such daily life cycles, perhaps there’s room for a new kind of diet plan? Move aside weight loss drug Alli – there’s a new kind of obese lifestyle to combat: Too many Facebook friends; too many tweets...

We need a pill! One that blocks all media and could automatically ‘de-friend’ all contacts. Pop it! And we could be free!

Social Network Sites (SNSs) could provide a round of prescriptive doses to wean their most addicted users - those with a higher Friend Mass Index (FMI) of 5,000 or more.

Our expert says: 'it may help some people with friend loss, but they would have to take a conscious decision to stop poking so much'.

Anyone who wants the medication should go directly to their friendly Social Media Consultant for advice because there are high risk factors for other obsessive behaviour. For example, watching The Wire until a Baltimore accent is perfected and understood, and filling 24hours with 24.

Trials show that by de-friending on a reduced friend diet, can help people lose 50% more friends than turning off the mobile alone.

But if individuals persist in 'just' watching friends, they can expect some negative side effects, including the urge to follow Jonathon Ross Wossy on Twitter.

Dr Mariann Hardey, Social Media Analyst, said: ‘This pill can work and the risks are minimal, but it must play into a larger scale social information management regime. Such lifestyle changes must come first and last – I heartily recommend the efforts of Slow Down London.’
Key points
# Networks with an FMI of 10 to 500 is normal
# By 2050, 90% of men and 70% of women will have an embarrassing picture on Facebook
# Facebook will account for 18 million friendships and 50 million arguments a day

For more serious Slow Down tips why not try my favourite Top Three:

1. Take yourself for a walk – without any media device! But be sure to notify your Twitter followers before you do, they might miss you , and social etiquette says that it would be rude not to.
2. Do not check email first thing in the morning. Erk! As if?! Nothing says ‘good morning’ more than catching up on what you might have missed the day before over tea and toast. This is as routine for as having a shower first thing. A more realistic tactic I am trying to impose is to have an email lock down every other hour. This is to give time on other important projects – such as writing!
3. At the same point each evening, turn off every communication device. Remind yourself of your family and friends away from Facebook. Play games, talk.

I’m sure there are more, so if you can’t be at the SDL, but want to join in, you add your ideas here...

I'll make sure to be slow to reply.