I also noticed that I stopped posting much on my private blog after joining G+. For me, it is less about the blogging capabilities but more about the comments I receive. It is harder to draw attention to a private blog in contrast to blog on a social network.
To overcome this problem, I wrote a small Wordpress plugin called "Google+ Crossposting", which is now importing my public G+ activities into my blog ;-)
I can only second that. I also tried some sprites we use. The service reduced the size by about 15%, but introduced clearly visible artefacts, especially around text. Not very convincing.
Don't get it wrong. Everyone has to decide on his own if he wants to work on something useful for society or not. There is no general way to judge that, but it is always a personal decision based on ethics the person considers worth to follow.
Mmmh, he probably refers to things like developing Farmville. It is unclear why this solves any problems and not just wastes the time of users. But to be fair, if people wouldn't play Farmville doesn't mean they wouldn't find another way to waste their time :-)
That strikes me as one of those perfectly logical justifications for contributing to a problem: "Well, if we didn't produce cigarettes, someone else would anyway." It's also a red herring; it doesn't matter if someone else would or not, all that matters is whether or not we did the deed.
Well, you are right here, but that's essentially the point I try to address. Everyone of us has to decide on his own if he wants to work on something, which has no positive effect on overall society.
I wanted to go completely without at first. Then I realized 99% of my social interaction happens online and I am not interested in [essentially] walking off into the desert to think for 30 days.
Also reducing "frivolous internets" from 24/7 to an hour a day. A solid hour at that, not interspersed throughout the day ... will be hard.
But it seems that that is what you need:walking off into the desert to think for 30 days.
Try unplugging for 3 full days and each fourth day, you get only an hour.
Depends on how you count. There are only so many IRL people you can interact with on a daily basis and even with most of those I tend to keep in touch online for various reasons.
To overcome this problem, I wrote a small Wordpress plugin called "Google+ Crossposting", which is now importing my public G+ activities into my blog ;-)