Pinterest. Facebook. Blogger. Picasa. Tumblr. Twitter. Deviantart. Google+. Instagram. LinkedIn. Flickr. Foursquare. Myspace. StumbleUpon. If I could come up with 14 sites on my own within a minute, then there must be over 100 well known social networking sites out there. What are they all for? What is their purpose in life? What is the point?
Well, I've been on only half of the above list, but it still took quite a bit of thinking to understand my presence in that limited fraction. Indeed, I go through that kind of reflection every few months and often find some redundancy in the sites I do use. We use social media to share our stories, but I'd like to share the story of my social media.
In the beginning, I used Blogger for everything: thoughts, stories, and pictures. Then Facebook came along, and all of a sudden the thoughts and pictures were shifted there, and the stories just vanished. I don't know where they went, because presumably I should still have them, but I've never been able to return to that carefree storytelling.
Anyway, my extended family began using Picasa for sharing pictures with each other, and still do, but ultimately I stayed with Facebook for sharing pictures with people I knew and actually cared about. Similarly, Google+ threatened to take the thoughts away from Facebook, but it never caught on as much as expected.
On the other hand, I suddenly became interested in sharing my pictures with people I didn't know or care about; this phase is a little hard for me to rationalize, even now. I went through Picasa, Blogger, and Deviantart before turning (as I am currently) to Tumblr.
So here is the status quo, then: my short thoughts go to Facebook, which is also used for contact and sharing pictures with friends and family. Tumblr is used to share pictures with people I don't know and will probably never meet. Finally, this blog is for my long thoughts, my ramblings, my musings, my poems, and basically anything else. And of course, most of all, my excitement and joy at random and sometimes trivial things, which I'm learning to cultivate even though it's my most immature and childish feature. :)
Well, I've been on only half of the above list, but it still took quite a bit of thinking to understand my presence in that limited fraction. Indeed, I go through that kind of reflection every few months and often find some redundancy in the sites I do use. We use social media to share our stories, but I'd like to share the story of my social media.
In the beginning, I used Blogger for everything: thoughts, stories, and pictures. Then Facebook came along, and all of a sudden the thoughts and pictures were shifted there, and the stories just vanished. I don't know where they went, because presumably I should still have them, but I've never been able to return to that carefree storytelling.
Anyway, my extended family began using Picasa for sharing pictures with each other, and still do, but ultimately I stayed with Facebook for sharing pictures with people I knew and actually cared about. Similarly, Google+ threatened to take the thoughts away from Facebook, but it never caught on as much as expected.
On the other hand, I suddenly became interested in sharing my pictures with people I didn't know or care about; this phase is a little hard for me to rationalize, even now. I went through Picasa, Blogger, and Deviantart before turning (as I am currently) to Tumblr.
So here is the status quo, then: my short thoughts go to Facebook, which is also used for contact and sharing pictures with friends and family. Tumblr is used to share pictures with people I don't know and will probably never meet. Finally, this blog is for my long thoughts, my ramblings, my musings, my poems, and basically anything else. And of course, most of all, my excitement and joy at random and sometimes trivial things, which I'm learning to cultivate even though it's my most immature and childish feature. :)
