Social networking sites are great to catch-up with friends, share photographs, music and links but it seems to be a great time suck. I do not even blog everyday anymore so why am I joining all these sites?
First out of the gate that leads to confusion is setting up each one. Sounds easy and it should be. After all I am not a complete dummy although sometimes I wonder. I sometimes think that I wake up each day with way less brain power than the day before.
How many networks can one person join? How many different identities can I manage before I mess up and cross the line between my real life and my Internet one? What I mean is, I have places where I converse with people I know in person and site where I hold back some info. I really do not want certain people goggling my name and ending up here – like my parents for example. It is not that I spend a lot of effort trying to hide my identity but . …
Then there is the problem of making sure that the setting in each social network site are set up so I do not end up having double of triple updates. Augh – my pea brain is smoking on that one – smell the smoke?
I shudder to think how crazy all this would get if I tried to join every network that others use. So for right now I am keeping it with Twitter, FriendFeed, Facebook, and my blog here. I do use blip to listen to the tunes and library thing where I am trying to make a list of all my books.
The distinction between blogging and social networking is going to be hard to maintain in future I think. With blog posts forwarded to different social sites and comments from social site showing up on blogs – yikes! Technology is designed to condense things. Many articles I have read and personal friends relay of dislike of the internet connection to share believing that it is the ruin of interpersonal communication.
It is important to stay connected to people on a person level rather than just through technology. Human contact is wonderful! I just do not find myself getting out as much. Social isolation is not a good thing eh? Acquaintances have start to shy away when they do not understand why I am not up for outings at a drop of the hat anymore. There are days fatigue stops me cold. Then there are other things too (uh huh the mother nature calls). Who wants to hang out with someone whose main goal while site seeing is the location of all the restrooms. On hot days I flounder. Some days formulating coherent conversation is near impossible for me.
Multiple sclerosis has left me in the dirt socially. Oh wells, that is where blogs and social sites ROCK for me.
Believe it or not, I see the socnets as a tool that will turn us back to blogging. What they’re good for (excluding Facebook right now): sharing, finding new voices, new perspectives and frankly, new articles relating to areas of interest.
But…tweets can’t be accessed after awhile. Friendfeed is a terrific aggregator but it’s a little confusing on the ‘sending out’ side, though it also does that quite well. Facebook’s reciprocal follow model limits it, not to mention the mashing-up of friends, family, work colleagues and everything else all in one place. Yech.
I aggregate it all in Friendfeed. I have the conversations on Twitter more than on blogs these days…that’s true. But when I have something I really want to say, I say it on my blog. Or a blog I’m a contributor to, like bipartisan report, and the like.
LOL and if it were not for your help i would still have double comments on my lifestream!
Don’t even know what possessed me to do the lifestream thing other than it was there . …
Right now the library thing is sucking up my time – but it will hopefully help me when hunting through the used book stores and the goodwill. I can print a list up for KRP so she does not buy something I already have.
I have enough books to keep me entering for awhile. Yikes, and the boxes in storage – oh me oh my.
I do like finding updates on fires etc on twitter. Facebook is kind of scary heading toward the MySpace troubles I think. I hope their purchase of FriendFeed does not ruin it before I figure out how to use it!
Happy Birthday celebrations today and Happy Birthday tomorrow!
Jan
Maybe it’s my MS addled brain, maybe it’s some security stuff of my computer that I don’t understand, but I recently joined Facebook and I find it nearly useless, foolish, a time suck, and dumb. I’ll stick with the great time waster that is blogging, TYVM. Oh, and I don’t tweet, either – nothing really to tweet about!
I think I’ll have some fruit salad and read a book. (Now that would have been a good tweet, wouldn’t it?) LOL
You are always making me giggle Webster 😉
What you reading right now?
Jan
Ha! We can both get a giggle out of this … World of Pies by Karen Stolz. It’s just a coming of age story with recipes included. But what timing, eh?
I find that social networking sites are time sumps and I LIKE THEM. 🙂
We, not just I but WE, can get together and “converse” because, if a little thing like physical distance doesn’t make a difference, a little thing like MS doesn’t matter either.
OMG!! I fiinally found your blog! I am such a dunce with computers! Slap me! I don’t deserve to have a blog! HI! I shall return!