Social Networking

Social media? Important way to get news? Huge time waster? Essential to keep up with friends and family? Way to spew your own particular political views by sharing the real or fake news? That's my facebook profile above with a few photos it displays when you click on that.

Social media, for me, is really Facebook and Twitter. And I send tweets to Facebook. I do have a Google+ account because I use Google Apps, but I never look at it. My Instagram account has one picture (of tacos).

Yep. I never go there. So I usually only see Instagram pix (and tweets for that matter) when they are shoved to Facebook.

I don't need social media to get news. I get phone alerts from the AP, NY Times, The Wall Street Journal, etc. I take papers. And sometimes get around to reading them.  I watch the news on TV. I listen to NPR when I'm in the car. 

What I'm really looking for with social media is the passing parade of people being people. Getting sick, getting well, not getting well, having children, sending those kids off to college, traveling. It is fascinating to see what a theater critic in California is saying or the high school classmate who lives in Las Vegas or San Jose. Getting travel pictures from the couple who is older than us and travels to exotic places. It is instructive to hear about moves, new jobs, retirements, hobbies. I like seeing what movies and shows people are seeing. I find their snarky political swipes instructive (of who they are and what they are feeling) even as I zoom past them. And I love seeing the pictures people post of their meals and drinks. 

I try to add something to the mix that might be a little different. I share stories (from real news outlets) that are not what we read every day. I take walks and post random photos along with the path drawn on a map. I do take pictures of my drinks (especially the Manhattans) and attractive food. I occasionally ask for advice from the hive mind.

Yes, I probably waste too much time on these feeds when I could be accomplishing something. But it's really all about how you use it. And I don't think I followed any links to stories pimped by Russians. And one can waste time in so many ways these days. Sometimes I look at social media, watch TV and try to read the papers all at once. It doesn't really work, of course. 

Blogging (well, WEB journals) were sort of the original social media. Or newsgroups. Whatever. You'd blog and comment on blogs. You kept up with people all over the world.

Here is one thing that does bug me about social media. We go to an event and we are having a conversation and someone starts talking about the things we have done and posted. Then they admit that they never post anything themselves. Is there any way to get them to shut up telling you what you have done? ("You take all these long walks." "You were in Dallas.") Could they at least talk about what they've been doing when you meet in person since they (think) they already know all about your life?

Pretending to Write

The Visible Woman...writes.

At some point after I retired I printed some business cards on the laser printer that had, below my name, "Pretending to Write, But Really Just Blogging." I was a pretty assiduous blogger for a while, too. Then it collapsed. At about the same time I started tweeting. I took a red pen to some of those cards and struck out 'write' and wrote 'blog.' And I struck out 'blogging' and wrote 'tweeting.' It was sad but true. I like looking back at my old journal/blog entries with their attempts at focus and, in some cases, incredible detail. The twitter archive and facebook timelines are fun in the same way. But it's harder to dig in and figure out just what was in your head and heart.

Now I tweet and tweet some more. I connect my tweets to facebook and they appear there, too. Occasionally I upload pictures to facebook directly. I share, I comment, I retweet. If I wasn't committed to Holidailies that's all I'd be doing.

Tweeting is interesting. I usually have something to say. I want to say it in one tweet breath of 140 characters. I type it out. And...it's too long. Sometimes by a lot. (See above.)

Then I edit.

And edit again and again and again and finally tweet and then it appears on facebook.

Along the way, articles, proper punctuation and spelled out conjunctions are sacrificed. You regret you didn't use one of the spare characters to put a comma between a couple of words. And then you say to yourself: how could anyone possibly care about this 'writing.' My English Textbook for my freshman year in college was called Writing with a Purpose. This sort of publishing was never anticipated! Of course, neither were blog entries of self-indulgent detail like this one. And what, after all, is the purpose?

Why Haven't You Written?

Remember when there was no on-line chat, no e-mail, no blog, no IMs, no text messages, no social media, no unlimited long distance calling plans even? Yeah, people wrote letters and mailed them. It cost less than forty-four cents to post one, but still what an effort! And people would write you wondering why you hadn't written. And famous peoples' letters were/are preserved in books and carefully archived and edited.

I don't write any more. It's the middle of May and this blog has no entries for May. The Journal of Unintended Consequences is fallow. I'm not writing a novel. Sadly I have been transcribing old journals into the computer. In some cases old 'to do' lists as if this typing was somehow writing. I twitter (and my terse pronouncements are echoed on facebook). People comment. There are e-mails and responses. Today FFP and I actually talked, in person, to an old friend. My time doesn't go to writing. It is swallowed by eating and drinking and watching stuff I shouldn't watch on TV and cleaning. FFP has an excuse...he has writing jobs, he has follow-ups for his non-profits. I'm playing tennis or goofing off. I embrace distractions, I think.

I also am pretty sure that I no longer have anything to say. I started an entry with this title a week or so ago, accidentally lost it. When you become cavilier about your words...yeah, you are probably right about what they are worth.

I have kept up with Austin Daily Photo, which seems like a distraction in and of itself. I updated a friend's WEB page. There is always something else to do besides my own allegedly creative stuff. I need to finish reading the paper, I need to go brush my teeth, I need to pay some bills, I need to tidy my desk.

Life will hand you whatever distractions you need, I think. I'm off to type in years-old paper journals or extract the bits of my novel from this forum and fret over it or, oh, I don't know. But I wanted to stop by and say that I hate that my mantra ("Pretending to write but really just blogging") has now become "Pretending to write but really just tweeting." Heck...I haven't even taken that many shop window reflections lately. (The one here is from weeks ago.)