Friday, January 08, 2010

How much is too much?

Well, it's been months and months since I've posted here. I look at the link on my iGoogle home page every day, and think to myself, "The last post talks about spring arriving, and here it is the dead of winter. I really should write something. But what?"

Something that's been percolating in the back of my brain has to do with all the connectivity we have in this modern age. Take me, for example. I have six email addresses and three telephone numbers, one of which is, of course, a cell phone with text messaging. I'm on Facebook, Ning, LinkedIn, Twitter. I have a blog, (actually two), a Bloglines account to manage my RSS feeds, and a web page. I'm sure if I thought about it, I'd have other things I could list, too.

But how much of that do I actually USE? Well, email, for sure. And I use all six of those accounts for various things - one is for my friends & family, one is my "accounts" address - when you have to use an email address to sign up for things (like Facebook) which I check less frequently (though I DO check it) - one is my work address, one is for my youth theatre group, and the other is sort of part work-related/part personal.

As for the rest - I get on Facebook infrequently, because it's blocked at work (yeah, I know I have a filter override password, but I don't like using it for something like that) and it loads really slowly at home for some reason. Takes forever sometimes! I have almost never used LinkedIn, and I follow some folks on Twitter (Sockington the cat is my personal favorite), though I seldom tweet myself.

I do tend to use Ning a lot; we use it for theatre-related things. It's a great way to set up a communication network for the kids in our show casts (thank you, Stephen Miller, for that wonderful idea!). We can post schedules, pictures, videos, exchange ideas, send messages. Works great!

The RSS feeds are useful; I do check my Bloglines, but once again, I need to pare that down. There are some feeds on there that seemed like a good idea at one time, but I don't look at them.

Some days, though, I simply feel overwhelmed by all the technology and, paradoxically, guilty that I don't use it more efficiently and effectively. Perhaps that's why I was so intrigued to hear about the Web 2.0 Suicide Machine when I was listening to NPR on the way to work yesterday. Apparently I'm not the only one feeling overcome by the thought of being caught in the Web!