LibraryTechtonics

One of the worst things about being sick is falling behind. Techie though I am, the last thing I want to do when I’m home sick with a nightmarish head cold is to sit in front of my computer all day. You’d think it would be an excellent time to tool around in Second Life, or catch up on email, or go through feeds, or even garner sympathy on Twitter. Not for me. I want naps, tea, more naps, maybe some TV or crochet, and maybe a call from a friend. Generally in that order.

When I do presentations about social networking software, people often ask, “How do you find the time to do all that stuff?” It’s not really about finding time as much as it is a regular part of the daily routine. Some people read the paper every morning with their coffee. I listen to NPR (WGBH *rawks*!), take a quick glance at my MSN homepage (which I acquired when I signed up for my Hotmail account *ages* ago, and easily became a staple), check my.weather.com, browse email, and hit Twitter. Call it continuous partial attention, call it crazy (I can see you shaking your head, Walt), I call it normal. On any given day, I may drop one, two, three parts of the routine, but it’s no big fuss, because my world isn’t revolving around it, I’m just using everyday tools. It’s when I drop out of the routine altogether that things get messy.

Now that I’m well, I’m looking at the online mess that accumulated while I was “away,” and I’m not terribly happy about it, since things for me have gotten inefficient lately, cluttered with too much stuff I don’t use or do anymore. However, it’s very motivating. Why let this happen again? I mean, I have been meaning to clean up and get rid of some email accounts I never use, firm up my regular online reading repertoire, and just streamline my online existence overall.

So that’s what I’m doing now.

I’m finding that I’m having the best time staying in touch with friends, and colleagues who have become friends, on LiveJournal, Facebook and Twitter. Jaiku is a neat toy for now, and it’s good to play with a new technology just to get a handle on why other people play with that technology, but I don’t know that I’ll make a complete move over, so it won’t need regular watering and feeding like my more regular social networking outlets do. I’m two steps from deleting my Friendster account (who needs all those extra Friendster update emails?), but I’ll likely keep my MySpace account (which I check maybe once a week) because it helps me keep up with musicians and artists I like first and foremost, then friends who don’t socially network/update anywhere else, then librarians who are hanging out on MySpace, too.

I haven’t been in Second Life in *ages*. That’s due to the Big Christmas Machine Meltdown of 2006; I just never reinstalled the software. Someday, I’ll get around to it, but I won’t cry in the meantime. I’m subscribed to the Second Life Alliance Google Group, which is where the Second Life Library 2.0 gang and their affiliates hang out, so I can at least stay in the know.

The biggest problem spots for me are email and RSS feeds. You’re probably reading all this and asking yourself, “Does she sleep? Does she do anything else with her life? Is she a machine?” Truth is, I make an effort to sleep every night. I also have a husband I like to spend time with, crochet, sew, and play with other crafty bits, write, go to the gym, do yoga, meditate, call or hang out with my friends in real life, play with food in the kitchen, and get out in the Nature part of the world with the hiking, camping, and geocaching.

As a result of living my life a bit more, I’ve fallen out of love with RSS readers. I haven’t read my Bloglines account in months, mostly because it’s stressful to see all of those bolded unread post numbers next to each feed, and feeling deficient for even skimming. The format was good for a while, but after using it for a while, I find that other methods work better for me. Visiting individual blogs feels like visiting friends, which is way better. I’ve always been a LiveJournal gal at heart, and the Friends page model works really, really well for me. Couple that with seeing links from friends on Twitter and Facebook, sites I love and visit, and I have better ways of keeping in touch that don’t make me feel icky.

I’m also really, really annoyed with email. Too many accounts. Too much spam. Too many useless messages from listservs. Too many chatty messages from groups. Too many people who don’t know how to use email correctly. I miss important messages all the time because I’m sorting through the yuck, trying to get to the good stuff, and while spam filters are meant to help, it just creates yet another stop on the email hide-and-seek trail. With the social networking sites I use, I feel like the people I communicate with understand the tool, understand the medium, and understand how to communicate with me, which is super. So, I’m paring down my email accounts, moving all the important stuff into the accounts I actually check, then keeping one account for things that might produce spam but require an email address for something.

Overall, I feel like social networking tools are the communication methods I’ve been moving towards my entire life. I started out in VAX land, and moved up through the baby steps of email, listervs, IM, groups, to what we have now, always craving something a little bit better integrated to do just what I want. I think I’ve found what I’m looking for in Facebook, Twitter, and LiveJournal, and even in some groups. The game is to continue balance the old with the new, factor in the work styles and learning curves of other people, and find a comfy place while still having a good life offline.

Constant paradigm shifts are fun.

Tags: technology