Dear John Social Media,
Dear Social Media,
I think we're spending too much time together. I just feel smothered. I check my Facebook before my email these days. I download special apps for my computer and phone to make sure 'updates' get to FB, Twitter, AND G+. I stream some of my news feeds through FB, instead of RSS, and then feel bogged down when I have to go hunt through the mess to FIND the news stream I want to read. As a consequence of snatching up short blurbs of either densely packed information or witty one-liners, I'm pretty sure my attention span is MUCH shorter than it used to be. It's sometimes a struggle to get through a news article when I DO find the stream I want. I find myself breezing over paragraphs in the "TLDR" mindframe, figuring the topic paragraph and the ending paragraph will give me enough context clues to absorb the article. Having previously been a prolific reader, I'm rather appalled with myself. You know, I think I'm losing my 'spelling' too, darn you autocorrect etc.
I decided to look up if there were any studies done on this 'dumbing down phenomena', but I got distracted before I found any real data. No really I did, I found a hilarious article, but if I post it NOW I don't think you'll finish the blog. I went to share the article (I was on my phone) when I realized it wouldn't post to all three networks from there. So I dragged out the laptop and plugged it in so I could post it from the browser. Then I realized the link was SO LONG, I couldn't add a comment when it went to Twitter, so I went to shorten it in Ow.ly.com. You know, there's and ad on their site for their Toolbar.
I don't blog anymore... I post snippets through my social media. The unimportant stuff? Nah, not worth the blog (so why post it to SM?) The important (to me) stuff? Doesn't get posted because I've already posted it, people don't read the blog anyway BECAUSE I SM, and sometimes I plain forget to 'repost' because (yep) I already posted it. Doesn't matter that the info gets sucked up in the stream and never seen. You know, my grandmother reads my blog, but doesn't participate in social media. Have there been times I posted about grades without putting it on my blog? I don't remember what info I write in the snail-mail letters, because I've put everything in SM already.
SO, my memory, my attention span, my TASTE, my ability to spell etc etc... I think it's all declining.
I are scared.
SO... Social Media. I'm breaking up with you. We can still be friends (har har), but I'm going to try to be more discerning about what I 'share' and 'tweet' and 'post' and 'like' etc etc. People probably don't need or want to know EVERYTHING I thought was cute yesterday (all though that crying Skyrim dragon was great). So...Maybe, a blog a day. Or every couple days depending on what turns out to seem interesting to me. Sure, I'll drop in the news articles I found really interesting. Maybe even put a tiny gallery of the super cute pictures I couldn't bear NOT to share. But really SM, I need a break. And it's definitely you.
Oh, for those of you who just scrolled to the bottom (I know you did) here's that funny "No attention span" article from DailyMash.
I think we're spending too much time together. I just feel smothered. I check my Facebook before my email these days. I download special apps for my computer and phone to make sure 'updates' get to FB, Twitter, AND G+. I stream some of my news feeds through FB, instead of RSS, and then feel bogged down when I have to go hunt through the mess to FIND the news stream I want to read. As a consequence of snatching up short blurbs of either densely packed information or witty one-liners, I'm pretty sure my attention span is MUCH shorter than it used to be. It's sometimes a struggle to get through a news article when I DO find the stream I want. I find myself breezing over paragraphs in the "TLDR" mindframe, figuring the topic paragraph and the ending paragraph will give me enough context clues to absorb the article. Having previously been a prolific reader, I'm rather appalled with myself. You know, I think I'm losing my 'spelling' too, darn you autocorrect etc.
I decided to look up if there were any studies done on this 'dumbing down phenomena', but I got distracted before I found any real data. No really I did, I found a hilarious article, but if I post it NOW I don't think you'll finish the blog. I went to share the article (I was on my phone) when I realized it wouldn't post to all three networks from there. So I dragged out the laptop and plugged it in so I could post it from the browser. Then I realized the link was SO LONG, I couldn't add a comment when it went to Twitter, so I went to shorten it in Ow.ly.com. You know, there's and ad on their site for their Toolbar.
Ow.ly Social Bar 2.0I'm rather disturbed, because IT'S TRUE. Not because a toolbar says it is, but simply BECAUSE IT IS. I'm becoming a character in Idiocracy, where all my past-times come with ads attached, and all my goals are minuscule because the old 'grinding' of NES (and even WoW) is dying out. I feel like I'm trapped in Brave New World.
In the age of sharing, linking, retweeting, capped attention spans and character limits, people need things to be shorter, better, faster, stronger.
I don't blog anymore... I post snippets through my social media. The unimportant stuff? Nah, not worth the blog (so why post it to SM?) The important (to me) stuff? Doesn't get posted because I've already posted it, people don't read the blog anyway BECAUSE I SM, and sometimes I plain forget to 'repost' because (yep) I already posted it. Doesn't matter that the info gets sucked up in the stream and never seen. You know, my grandmother reads my blog, but doesn't participate in social media. Have there been times I posted about grades without putting it on my blog? I don't remember what info I write in the snail-mail letters, because I've put everything in SM already.
SO, my memory, my attention span, my TASTE, my ability to spell etc etc... I think it's all declining.
I are scared.
SO... Social Media. I'm breaking up with you. We can still be friends (har har), but I'm going to try to be more discerning about what I 'share' and 'tweet' and 'post' and 'like' etc etc. People probably don't need or want to know EVERYTHING I thought was cute yesterday (all though that crying Skyrim dragon was great). So...Maybe, a blog a day. Or every couple days depending on what turns out to seem interesting to me. Sure, I'll drop in the news articles I found really interesting. Maybe even put a tiny gallery of the super cute pictures I couldn't bear NOT to share. But really SM, I need a break. And it's definitely you.
Oh, for those of you who just scrolled to the bottom (I know you did) here's that funny "No attention span" article from DailyMash.
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