The year 2009 was the huge push for social networks. Like most people, I joined more and more like there was no tomorrow. My wife and I bought an old 1950′s home towards the end of the year and something happened overnight. The meaningless vain dribble and regurgitation of Twitter was all of a sudden pushed away so I could crawl under a basement and apply PVC glue to white sewer pipe.
It’s like you gain a new-found respect for blue collar workers in this country who have more important things to do than re-tweet this same crap that 300 people before you have done.
Sure social networks are still needed, but more and more I find the need for curation as in “the way a curator takes care of an art gallery’. The internet has fun things on it—no doubt, but honestly an hour a day in enough to ‘get the gist of it’. People who stay on Twitter and Facebook 24/7 are truly diseased in my opinion. The information we read is repetitive, made-up, twisted and sensationalized. I find myself on Digg.com more and more because this is an example of curation. The stories are voted up and down which allows me to avoid the “Big Noisy Room” which is Twitter and Facebook. I have wires to fix, pipes to glue and dirt to dig. I can’t afford to stay behind the computer all day waiting for the next “BREAKING” headline or “RT:” vomit. If it’s important enough to consider, it will get voted up by the community.
Mind you, I didn’t say “The internet was meaningless”. I have used the internet a great deal to find ways to fix pipe, wires, dig holes, paint and plug drafts. But honestly, social networking has done little to help me and our broken house. I keep asking myself, “Why do people think this is so important?” I’ve come to the conclusion that Twitter is 50% vain garbage, 45% regurgitation and 5% useful breaking news when something massive like an earthquake happens.
Great post!
I don’t have an old house to work on, but I’ve been mentally offline for awhile now. Even though I spend my work days on a computer, I hardly ever use my computer at home anymore. I certainly don’t use IM when I’m home and I haven’t checked my Twitter feed in months. I spend my work day around people who monitor news sites and social networks so, if something important happens, I find out about it through them.
For me, it’s been about spending more time with Wanda, raising a puppy, and exercising / practicing Kempo.
I’ve been finding it harder and harder to find the time to play with new technologies. I would much rather be sparring or walking the dogs than learning about the latest new tool.
That said, I still greatly enjoy programming and sharing my programming experiences with others. Friends and family come first, though.