Too much
So recently I re-signed up for Facebook.
I'm aware that some of the people who I want to remain in contact with, use Facebook as the de-facto method of keeping in touch. Even email doesn't seem to factor into the equation. So I thought that maybe I would try it again, but find a way to only use it for what I need i.e keeping in touch and having a way to contact friends easily, without all of the extraneous guff involved in likes, photo's and inane statements that all add up to so much noise.
I made my first friend request to DOH.
And that was it. Within minutes I was starting to obsess over what privacy settings I would need to make. Who else would I add as friends. I wanted to keep my list to real, actual, meet-up-and-have-a beer/wine friends only.
But what about, you know, acquaintances that I am friendly with, who I want to keep slightly in touch with, who may be work buddies, but not real, real friends?
What do I do about stopping Facebook tracking me everywhere on the web?
If I use Facebook in a separate browser in safe mode to stop me tracking me everywhere on the web, what do I do about using Facebook on my iPhone?
Or iPad?
The stress and mental effort that is taking place in my head is already rising. I am already feeling how I felt beforehand, when I decided to delete my account.
I like the idea of social media. I use Twitter and still get great benefits from it. I want to know what my friends are up too, to stay engaged and connected. I'm not a hermit or a Luddite. But I also want to be able to live my life in the moment without feeling a need to broadcast that moment before it's finished.
And I want to cut down the signal to noise ratio that all social media seems to produce.
To sum things up in one line - I don't want the overwhelm.
I want to make it easy for my friends to keep in touch. And if they use Facebook, maybe that's why I need to be on it.
Stay on it, come off it. There is no simple answer yet. But I am determined to work one out.