I read a great post a couple of weeks ago over on The Life of Leo (h/t: Felicia Day). Musing on his frustrations with Google Buzz, Leo realized that in sharing and participating on social networking websites like Twitter and Facebook and the like, he was essentially creating content for websites which he didn’t actually own. It got me thinking about how Facebook and Twitter and Tumblr have becoming a major distraction for me while my two blogs have languished. It’s not just my blogs, either. I admit to letting more than a little of my real life houseworky things slide in favor of checking Facebook and reading my Twitter and Tumbler feeds. I realized, like Leo, that rather than enriching my life, social networking sites have actually detracted from it. Don’t get me wrong, I think that for many people, this isn’t necessarily the case at all, but for me and my situation, I’m simply unable to manage it all. Life is too short to feel overwhelmed by the internet. Never mind that the content I create for those sites does not actually belong to me.
So to that end, I’m done, and I’m taking back control of how I spend my time. I will no longer be posting to Twitter or Tumbler , and I am going to start limiting the amount of time I spend on Facebook as well and any links or random thoughts I have to share, I’m just going to post here. So there.
Knitting Interrupted 
Thank you – I have always wondered what good all this social networking is doing since it eats time and doesn’t necessarily bring you closer to other people or give you the time to accomplish hands on activities. I admit that I am older but staring at a computer screen all day gives me much less time to be creative and productive while only giving the illusion of connection to the rest of the world. Good luck with your writing/communicating.
Sounds good to me! I enjoy blog posts more than the quick facebook status. But I still have found connections there that I do appreciate. Guess it’s helped me to limit it too.