Back in 2001 I discovered social networking via the now defunct friendster. At the time this frontier was a new and exciting way to meet new people, stay in contact and of course get some booty. I was enthralled and even met a future wife via friendster.
Come 2004 and myspace is on the rise, with css scripting, modifiable profiles and embeddable content it was Tila Tequila ready, and when she migrated millions followed giving myspace some legitimacy and power in online media. Soon after big media started invading, the mass garbage profiles proliferated and genuine spammers moved in I started losing interest.
Then in 2007 I met a girl 10 years younger than me and fell madly in love, this kick in the pants of a girl got me to actually start using the facebook profile i had built half assed back in 2006. When the love affair crumbled facebook tortured me as I witnessed her posts and childishly vented via my own status updates. In the years since I have grown to have a deep adoration and almost codependent relationship with facebook; during which time I have had to re-learn certain aspects of how and what to share, whom to friend and whom to not, and sometimes those lessons were painfully fraught with deep emotional ties and social conflict. I have now recovered and keep facebook at a healthy yet still slightly frustrating distance.
Sometime in late 2008 the “one that got away” again suggested that, with my frequency of status updates on facebook, I should join this new site, twitter. So seeing as this whipsmart wunderkind had been right before when she told me I would love facebook, I took her advice and whoa nellie, a new timesuck for Trevor was born.
Twitter has become my most used creative outlet and favorite way to catch up on current events. I’m far from prolific and don’t clutter the ether with nonsensical babbling and useless retweeting but I do try to keep my content witty, entertaining, heartwarming and informative. At 1483 tweets (approximately 1.6 tweets a day) in just under two and a half years I have amassed 182 followers and probably lose about 2 hours a day to reading twitter and linked articles. Like I said, timesuck.
Now combine the emotional roller coaster and codependency of facebook with the temporal black hole of twitter and wha-bam!! Nothing truly productive gets done in my time off…. life in shambles.
Who am I kidding, facebook and twitter haven’t really ruined my life but they definitely have complicated it in ways I never expected and I’m positive my iphone isn’t helping either.
What about you? How has social networking complicated your life?
