Thanks, Bess, for setting this up.
This morning I'm experiencing the challenge I anticipated that made me resistant to joining Facebook. I'm having trouble keeping up with answering all the friend requests (yes, I'm very popular!) and cannot resist the urge to sculpt my page into the perfect representation of myself. These Web 2.0 tools take time. Is this another instance of "more work for mother," the argument that new technologies of industrialization (think the Cuisinart and all its precursors) aimed to make life easier for housewives, but in fact gave them more they were 'obligated' to do? These new tools, aimed at making it easier to communicate and network, clearly make keeping up socially and professionally much more complicated and time-consuming than the old-fashioned way of simply emailing. Prior to PEMCI, I kept such things at arm's length, not willing to commit my time and energy. I now see the great potential of social networking and all its cousins, but am I really willing to throw myself in completely? Do they still work to their full potential if I am just half-assed about it? As you can see from my ever more fancy page, I am currently about three-quarters-assed about it, adding my flickr link and an addictive geography game. Can I keep up? Should I?
2 comments:
I too resisted Facebook for years and having recently joined up I am finding Facebook taking up a lot of my time. I'm adding links and updating my favorite quotes, looking for "friends" and responding to friend requests. I can't help feeling skeptical though about the nature of friendship on Facebook. If you already correspond with a friend regularly, how do you communicate when you both join Facebook? Do you stop emailing and start Facebooking? What does that entail, writing on their wall? Sharing Facebook applications?
I hear you guys-- I think there is a period of "settling in" with these programs where you learn how it will and won't be useful to you. For me, I am a bit nervous about having started up a blog and now need to continue to post, but also be sure it is readable and that posts make sense. I am thinking of promoting it a bit, telling more people I know about it, but I can't help be self-conscious about possible misinterpretation or misunderstanding. The "public" aspect of social networking seems a lot harder to control (since you don't always know who your audience is or what they expect).
Anyway, speaking of controlling your public image-- FYI, you all should have the power to edit settings and layout of this blog now.
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