On 1st January, actor and writer Stephen Fry wrote the farewell tweet and said he will temporary “switch off most of my connections with the outside world”.
Stephen Fry was the UK second most influential twitterer who tweets everywhere he goes with his one million followers, he stopped tweeting because he has to work on his novel, and he thinks Twitter distracts him from achieving it.
On his blog,

I need peace, absolute peace, an empty diary and zero distraction. I enter a kind of writing purdah, an eremitical seclusion in which there is just me, a keyboard and abundant cups of coffee, all in a room whose curtains have been drawn against the light.

Here’s what Internet Specialist Amanda Watlington thinks about social media and distraction:

I’m not quite sure what “shiny objects” she was referring to, if she meant technology as a whole, it might have changed (saying it as a Digital Native). If she only sees social media as one of the marketing tools online, then I really don’t get why social media is a distraction, shouldn’t marketers plan strategically before getting into all the channels?

Does Social Media really distract us?
In my opinion, social media itself DOES NOT distract people. It really depends on what you do, how you do it, and how much you are obsessed with it (e.g. More space is needed for artistic work). People just love excuses, anything can be distracting if you lost control over it, social media is just another way of communication after all.