Raising my right hand, I’ll swear before this Internet community the truth – I, Lori, am a techno-holic. I sort of knew this all along, but it took Facebook to bring me to my knees and my senses.
Recently I was “found” on Facebook by a high-school chum. Her contacting me piqued my interest in this Facebook page my daughter had put up for me. I’ll admit I never understood the “pokes” and the “gifts” and the myriad of requests that kept piling up in that in box. I didn’t bother to learn because my first attempt left me wondering just what the hell I was wasting my time with this crap for. But after the friend started chatting with me on my “wall” I started looking up other high-school friends, and then other friends in general and before I knew it, I was updating my status every few hours and checking to see if it was my turn for any of the numerous Scrabble games I had going or if anyone beat my score on the Know Your Steelers trivia game or the Word Challenge (this is where I first realized how competitive I truly am) and if anyone had befriended me….
I learned Facebook enough to be dangerous. And there goes my hours that could be spent earning money. With Twitter, it’s instant, it’s constant, and it’s too damned enticing for someone like me. After reading Maria Schneider’s Twitter list of must-have contacts, I’m beginning to see the value in it. But value comes only if you use it in moderation. I’m weak. Moderation is not something I can do well when it comes to technology. It’s why I have no iPhone yet. The addiction would be immediate and devastating.
So you Twitterers, you social networking butterflies – how do you use your technology without letting it overwhelm you? Where are your limits, if you have them? How has it helped your career? Hurt it?
Too much social networking interferes with the inner creation time I need to do my work.
I don’t use either Facebook or Twitter. I don’t feel either one will help me.
I have a couple of MySpace pages, but even those I don’t yet utilize to their full potential.
Writers need solitude and SILENCE — they need to be disconnected occasionally from the tech stuff in order to refill the creative well.
I Twitter, and it took a LOT of convincing for me to go there. If you have problems managing your time, it can be downright dangerous. I have a designated amount of time each day that I allow myslef to read/comment on blogs, forums and other social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. It’s not much though because I’m pretty busy right now and prefer making money.
Still, I have gotten a new client from Twitter (quite unexpectedly because I don’t toot my own horn too much), and I have learned some very valuable information about marketing and technology trends, and other valuable business resources that I might have missed.
Raising hand too…plus the fact that I don’t know how to Twitter or tweet or whatever. I keep getting the request emails, but haven’t forced myself to learn it yet, probably because I’m afraid of being sucked in fulltime. Guess it’ll happen sooner or later, but my better self tells me to stay away. 🙂
I need another time sucker like I need a hole in the head!
I joined FaceBook a few months ago, and like you I was overly-addicted. But as the “newness” wore off, I checked it less and less. Now I check when I truly have free time, and I usually ignore the pokes and other requests. I will NOT Twitter, however. Nobody needs or cares to know what I’m doing all the time, and most of my tweets or twits or whatever would probably read “Amie is sitting at her computer.”
I kind of wish they enact a moratorium on new social networking sites. I don’t Twitter because of their TofS. Yet, all I can say each time I think of the hundreds of SNS is: Who has the time?
Bloggin has helped a lot. It feels like the whole world is watching so I have to make progress 🙂
Twitter… I don’t get it. Not yet. Too much junk. I’m not realy interested in what people say there.
I was hesitant about joining Twitter, but I’m really enjoying it. I can have virtual officemates when I want them and focus when I don’t. The nice thing is that with so much going on, you aren’t expected to keep up with everything. So I don’t even try. I’ve already found an expert source for a last minute article through Twitter, and I see the potential to do a lot more with it assuming I don’t let the idle chatter get in the way.
Wow! Never realized this topic would be so popular!
Devon – I agree. 100 percent. This blog sucks enough of my time. I barely have time to check Entrecard (though it has driven lots of traffic here and I’ve found some new favorites by dropping).
Kimberly, you’ve just landed on exactly why I can’t be trusted to Twitter. 🙂
Angie, I have Entrecard to thank for finding you, I believe. 🙂 I agree. Too little time to devote to it.
Amen, Carrie. 🙂
Amie, I was like that with Polyvore (which is too much fun – stay away!). Luckily, I became too busy to go there. It’s no longer an addiction. 🙂
Interesting thought, Joan. What I love is that the newest SN site is always touted as the BEST. I stick with LinkedIn for professional stuff, Facebook for fun, and Entrecard to drive traffic and find new blog favorites.
Amen, Desiree. Blogging is much more personal, isn’t it?
Susan, your experiences are exactly why I feel conflicted in rejecting Twitter sight unseen. I’ll peek, how about that? 😉
No twit here, either, Lori. No iPhone either. Or Ipod, ever! Or even a cell phone. I like to save my techiness to apply to writing and my blog.
After years of dragging my feet, I finally joined LinkedIn, and I still haven’t figured it out!
Georganna, you sound like my better half, who won’t own a cell phone because he simply does not want to complicate his life with one more gadget. The bread machine I bought him nearly put him over the edge. 😉
Hi Lori and thanks for the link. I agree that if you tend to get a little too enamored of social networking sites, Twitter can be a tough habit to break. But I do think it’s the best way right now to get traffic to your blog. My blog traffic has gone way up since I started Twittering.
Maria Schneider
Thanks to Facebook
Lori,
I resisted twitter for a long time too, for the same reason. I have an addictive personality. AND I have an iphone. Dangerous combination. 😉
But I’ve gotten more new business via twitter than I know what to do with. So I’m not complaining. 🙂