Save me from my social media channels!

Do you ever feel guilty when you've ignored your social media channels? Since I work in social media, I'm on everything: Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, YouTube, Digg, delicious, Second Life...you name it, I'm sure I've signed up for an account at some point. But I'm a Facebook lover, because I like the personal-ness of it and I've been smart enough to not accept the friendship of people I barely know (kindly sending them to my Linked in or Twitter instead) so I actually know the people whose status updates I read. And I not only read them, I comment on them. I've had some great and funny debates on Facebook. I also use the channel to goof off and check in with the real world when I'm feeling bored with my real work or just need a break. Nothing makes me happier (well, I'm sure something does) than posting something clever or offbeat and having my friends comment on it. I feel...well, I feel like I have friends, as sad as that may sound.

Twitter is a different story. I've been on Twitter for a couple of years now, when my friend Sperling, an early adopter, turned me on to it. I didn't understand it then and I still don't. I mean, I understand how people use it and I understand the benefits and all that, but I really don't care. In theory, each tweet is like a Facebook post and I shouldn't be so put off by it, and yet there is something about Twitter and Twitter-ers that I find irritating. Maybe it's because most of the people I follow are of the "What should I have for breakfast" variety, or they post links. And I hate the links. Because if looks interesting, then I feel compelled to click on it and that will open up yet another tab in my browser to an article that I really don't have time to read. Or I have to wait for twitpic to load to so I can see a picture of someone drunk at his birthday party. And really, this is just too much work. I'd rather stay on one site - Facebook - and skip around and cyberstalk. I also hate that Twitter is public, so I can't comment quite as freely as I'd like to. I realize that it is exactly this reason why so many people like Twitter - call them narcissists or publicity whores, or whatever you want, but I really think most of them just like the idea of meeting a lot of new people. Me, I hate people, so Twitter's not for me.

MySpace is really a sad joke at this point. I've been on it for years, although never really used it. It's so noisy, and I don't mean just the music that's screaming at me, I mean the colors and graphics and the animation and the various fonts. None of it makes sense and none of it flows, and I can't figure out the UI, so I gave up on MySpace a long time ago.

I have an account on YouTube, but not because I actually upload stuff. It's more for when I become obsessed with something to the point where I want to start saving videos of it. And of course because I work in social media, it's assumed I have one. Good thing I do.

Digg, delicious, Stumble upon, etc: I have to confess something here. I barely understand how to use those sites. I have my intern Rachel add things to them because I can't be bothered to figure out their UI. And honestly, I really don't care about any of that. Delicious is useful to me only if I'm on a different computer and I'm looking for something that I know I have saved. Otherwise, I'm rarely on it. Digg, Stumble Upon, and those other news sites sound interesting in theory, because I'm a news junkie, but I can't bring myself to ever actually go to those sites. Instead, I'm more of an RSS whore, and I just head to my trusty, easy-to-understand Google reader. Headlines at a glance, and it's all handpicked my yours truly.

My introduction to Second Life is sad and pathetic. We have our staff meetings via our virtual offices on Second Life, so I plunged in and got an avatar and all that allegedly fun stuff. And let me tell you, that site is not intuitive. I couldn't figure out anything, and ended up with the default clothes and hair, and attended my first staff meeting looking like an extra from Braveheart. Boots, gloves, cape, that was me. To make matters worse, I couldn't figure out how to move, and ended up gazing longingly out the window at a castle, of all places. But my colleagues were very nice, and gave me some Second Life money and took me shopping. Now I have hair that looks alarmingly like my real hair, a sharp gray suit, and I walk like a hooker. Unfortunately, I have man hands and my face looks like C-3PO, but I can live with that for now.

Maybe I've already pinpointed my problem: I hate people. Maybe it's the mysanthropy (misanthropicness?) in me that makes me dread so many of these social media channels. And yet I work in social media, and I enjoy doing it, so it's not that I don't care what people think. Maybe it's that I want them to do their thinking *over there* and I'll check in when I need to. The problem, if it really is one, is that because I work in social media, I'm expected to be transparent about my own life, and that's what doesn't feel comfortable. Because even though I'm online for a large part of the day, I'd still like to keep some of my personal life and thoughts private. I'm really more of a lurker until I get to know someone. Which actually makes me perfect for social media, because you should lurk for a while before participating.

Which brings me back to all those social media channels. When you have as many I do, sometimes all I have time for is lurking. Maybe choosing one as your primary channel is really the answer. So I can do all my posting and commenting on Facebook, and stealthily lurk on the other ones guilt-free.