For the last ten or fifteen years, I’ve been one of those people who creates accounts on the latest web sites that offer some way for us to connect with other people. I’ve watched most of these sites come and go. I guess they either didn’t provide us what we needed to connect with one another, or they just weren’t lucky enough to succeed. Facebook, privacy issues aside, has stood out as a fairly decent way for us to connect with each other over the time and distances that have separated us. We share joy and pain, mundane details of what and where we’re eating, and even photographs of the friends around us. It’s great to see each other and all that is happening in our lives. It makes the world a better place seeing you each day, and I feel closer to you than perhaps I have in the past. The Facebook also provides a huge opportunity for misunderstanding, for each individual post, by itself, lacks context. Only in aggregate can true meaning be observed, and in some cases things can be very meaningful, or simply, not at all.
I share a lot on Facebook. I probably share so much that many of you wonder if I actually work, eat, or even bathe with all the articles, music, thoughts, haiku and pictures that I post. For the next few weeks, I’m going to reevaluate how I use Facebook and other forms of social media. What gets shared, how, and with whom.
I still want to meaningfully connect with all of you, but I want to do it in a way that adds value to your lives and better shares who I am so you remember why you accepted - or sent me - that friend request. In order to better consider how I connect meaningfully with all of you online, I am going to temporarily take a break from Facebook, and other forms of social media. I need to figure out how to be a better friend to you online. And, more importantly, in the real world.
Thanks thanks to MM for this, I didn't have to think about what to write, as he encapsulated these thoughts so adroitly. "Good Artists Copy, Great Artists Steal" ~ Steve Jobs