Texting, Instant Messenging, Kik’ing, Path’ing, Facebooking…Tweeting.
I need to be in constant contact with people. I don’t mean face to face in person contact.
I need contact via words.
I live through a couple things – one being music, the other being words. If you want to really get inside my head send me music. You send me music with along with words, I might just be your biggest fan.
When I have my kids I usually I stay home and it’s just me after they go to sleep so it can be a bit lonely. I use the words to keep in touch with the rest of the world and feel like part of a bigger picture. Again, I need contact. It’s so important to me.
My closest friends are the ones that I talk to everyday and some of these people I haven’t even met in real life, but we talk, through typed words, every single day. Can be something as stupid as “You butt dialed me.” or “How are you?” or “Show me your boobs, just kidding. No really” or “Hey, I heard things aren’t so great right now. Want to talk?” They know that communication is so important and I love it that they understand me, as well as answer my random texts at midnight or 5am.
They support me and I love them for it.
I posted a story for someone last week on Vicarious Lines. The story was about how Social Networking had ruined this guy’s life and was very relateable on many levels. Social Networking hasn’t ruined mine, but it did play a big part in my divorce. It was hard for someone to get my attention when I felt like all my Twitter followers warranted it too. Stupid but true.
“Out of over 3,000 followers, I can count on the fingers of one hand the number that actually expressed concern when I dropped off of twitter. Only a few who generally cared what happened to me.It’s important not to confuse twitter followers with ‘friends’” - comment on VL
I saw that comment on Tuesday and I decided to try something.
I just stopped tweeting. Suddenly. Out of the blue.
Since Tuesday I have been posting all over my FB wall and I have been using Path which has a very small group of I think 7 people that I share stuff with. I’ve been texting my friends and noting those who haven’t been texting me. IM’ing my friends and again, noting those who haven’t been contacting me.
I was sure everyone on Twitter would be wondering what the heck was going on, but for someone who has over 80,000 tweets, an average of 68 per day and over 2700 followers and suddenly stopped tweeting, want to guess how many people asked where the heck I was and if I was OK?
One.
Fascinating.
This observation doesn’t mean I’m leaving Twitter – it’s just an observation.
I’m a writer and I communicate through words. I blog, I post, I tweet. These are things I use to feel close to others. This week made me re-evaluate a lot of things, re-prioritize a lot of things, and get some of the voices out of my head.
I found it’s easier to focus when I’m not listening to 2700 other people.
Interestingly enough, I noticed you hadn’t been tweeting but didn’t say anything. It was definitely noticed, though. Great observation.
I had it off most of today too and it is good to be back but was really nice having the mental quiet time.
I can totally relate.
It’s something that lots of us that rely on social media forget about from time to time. We forget to think – is this “real”.
Funny thing … I just saw this post after almost a year and only because someone hit my website after reading the VL post. That was my comment on VL. I’m (sort of) back on twitter now. Sometimes. But it has no power in my life anymore. No pull really. Turns out that one of the main reasons that twitter sucked me in so deeply and so fully was that I, too, was utterly unfulfilled in my ‘real’ life and was looking for something, anything, to fill the void. After being away from twitter and Facebook for a year, and spending that time filling my real life with the *real* things that nourish my soul and feed my heart and bring me joy, I find that I get very little from twitter, etc.
Just an observation.
I completely agree with you. Check out the most recent post I wrote about when I blocked my account recently. Twitter has no power over me because I am happy and not trying to hide in a fake world anymore. Glad it worked out for both of us.
I recently came back to twitter, but it is sure not the same for me. I post maybe once or twice a week. I’m just. not. interested. I much prefer real life.
Glad to hear how well things are working out for you (via FB).