on social media

[jazzfish]

I hate Facebook. I use it because I know too many people who are only on Facebook, some of whom I want to keep up with, but I hate it. I hate that it won't show me everything I want to see, I hate that it keeps showing me things I don't want to see, and I hate its intrusion into every facet of my life. I would give 1:2 odds on me abandoning Facebook entirely by this time next year.

(I am bemused by Google Plus. I'm on there but see little reason to use it.)

I enjoy reading Twitter but I am not well suited to using it. Twitter is one big internet party. At parties I am consistently the guy who's either standing around looking a bit lost, or talking excitedly to the same three or four people for several hours and wishing we were someplace a little bit quieter and more comfortable.

(Two quotes: "Facebook is the internet for extroverts" and "Facebook is where you hate your friends; Twitter is where you like strangers.")

I adore long-form personal blogging, which is why I'm still on DW/LJ and why DW doubles as my RSS reader. Not much more to say about that. I rarely comment on other people's posts but I do read them as they go by, and appreciate them a great deal.

I miss email, which is a stupid thing to say because I seem to know a number of people who want to communicate with me by email. I think what I miss is an ability and desire to be open on email without worrying about whether I'm about to say something stupid (for any of a number of definitions of stupid) and revising all the soul out of it until I'm exhausted and just don't bother writing.

I am apprehensive about IM. A side effect of talking so much to the same person for so long is that I'd built up an idiosyncratic ... personal language of chat, almost, so that talking with anyone now feels like I'm having to mentally translate as I go. That ties in with the fear of doing/saying something stupid from email, too.

I'm not sure about Skype but I'm also not so sure about the phone, or talking in person for long periods of time, because I'm not sure I can hold up my end of a conversation for that long.

(I dislike text messaging because I can't type fast or accurately enough on the Device's keyboard.)

... I think what's going on here is that I miss being less guarded around people, but I don't know how to turn that off. Although... hm.

Comments

[rbandrews]

Clearly, you should use Vine. :)

I really like those two quotes. For me, I had a Facebook account at one point, but I never used it because I couldn't find the "make a long post like on Livejournal" button. Without long posts, I didn't see the point. You can't say anything. Pretty much the same as Twitter, which is like Livejournal for illiterates. And I don't remember who said it, but Linkedin is blogging for people with no souls.

It seems odd that you'd say IM / Skype / phone are bad because you're too guarded. For me, I find it a lot easier to talk to people one at a time than all at once. I'm more guarded the larger my audience is.

[thanate]

I think this is one of those "just do it" problems. Very difficult to start.

[aamcnamara]

Fwiw, I have found that there is always a period of adjustment when one starts IMing a new person--okay, how do I capitalize, how many emoticons do we use, which ones signify which emotions--and it is a little exhausting but eventually evens out between each person's default style.

Not to imply that you just have to push through that part! and it will be great! because no., but just as another data point; especially early on in IMing someone (even if it's with someone I already know offline/in another online context--this happened with my sister), I am willing to forgive a lot of misunderstanding because we are still forming our own particular IM style. And there is an effort on my part to understand their IM quirks as well as to make my own comprehensible. If that...makes sense at all.

[https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawkLBjyzIxon8jvozMuweRNOE6Vx9DtMyKg]

I figure people I'm talking to are my friends and they get me. Or if they don't get me, they'll cut me some slack.

If they're not my friend yet then maybe we're just becoming friends, or they're old friends and we're reconnecting. At that point, they either get me, don't and cut me some slack or don't and we don't progress any further, all of which are OK by me.

I'm a warts and all kinda person. Love me or leave me alone, and if you love me, you love me for (or, perhaps, despite) my warts.

[queenoftheskies.livejournal.com]

I can so relate to this entire post.

I despise Facebook and haven't used it in years. I tried a while back, but I just don't like it and it is intrusive. So many people have abandoned LJ for Facebook only and that makes me very sad. I won't break down and use it. I just miss people, instead.

At first, Twitter seemed like a train wreck to me, but as I grow accustomed to it, some evenings I enjoy following conversations. Occasionally, I reply to tweets, but I feel so out of place with all the published people. I just feel invisible, I guess. Even less frequently, I tweet.

E-mail is nice, though I'm so busy that I'm not always quick to respond to e-mails I receive.

IM and phone are less attractive because I feel trapped by them. And, like you, I'm a slow texter, though I do use it to communicate with my kids.

I've been wishing more people would come back to LJ. I miss the sense of community here.

And, on a completely different note: Can you believe it's been TWO YEARS since we attended VP???

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Amen about Facebook. I manage about five minutes a month before it becomes intolerable. Haven't been able to face even trying Twitter.

[vvalkyri.livejournal.com]

Well there is Skype. And I have similar problems. People all forgot how to deal with email, me included.

[culfinriel.livejournal.com]

That's pretty much exactly how I feel. Sounds stupid, but I thought I was the only one who felt like this.

[plumbob78.livejournal.com]

I despise email. I have so goddamned much of it at work I just don't want to deal with it at home. And I never feel like I can scrape together enough interesting stuff to say for a proper email anyway. Or a blog post. Every once in a while I'll try it, then I just stop again. Facebook and Twitter are just about my speed. One-liners and quips I can do.