The last few weeks or so, some things online came to a head and I had finally had enough.
While I love this blog – dude, I’ve been writing it since 2004 – I’m starting to dislike the lack of privacy I have in my world. And not so much that YOU guys are seeing what I put out there; it’s more the rest of my social networks that needed a major overhaul.
I started on Facebook, for no other reason than I hate it. I went into my settings and was alarmed to see that (AGAIN!) my privacy settings had been reset. Facebook is NOTORIOUS for doing this quietly, and while I typically can keep up, I don’t know when this change occurred. I pulled my settings back severely, and then took a hard look at my Friends list. I had over 800 Friends. Considering my phone’s Quick Dial list has exactly ten numbers on it, 800 Friends seemed a bit ridiculous.
I had some random criteria in my head to define who I would ”unFriend”: if I hadn’t interacted with you since our “Friend-ship”, if you are one of those bullhorn folks who loudly spew your political views with venom, frankly if I find you ignorant or your posts annoying or trite, you were getting the axe. (Sidenote: the body spray now has me concerned that I have mispelled the word “axe”. E or no e?)(Sidenote deux: media makes us stupid.)
In short, I narrowed my list of Facebook friends down to a little over 200. It’s a diverse blend of real friends, online friends with whom I’ve created a relationship, and family. That’s it. No businesses, organizations, or causes. No high school alumni whom I didn’t even really like then. (Other than Delle, obviously.)
Well, that .. that felt good.
So with that finished, I looked at Twitter. Around that same time, someone retweeted something from a locked account – of which I don’t have visibilty - and the tweet was something I took very, very personally. I looked at my open stream and thought, Screw this. If I’m not enjoying myself, I’m doing this wrong.
My follower list on Twitter was around 1100 folks. I locked my account and spent a good two hours, off and on, removing followers until it settled around 300*.
* – I had to use “old Twitter” to do this, and it was CRAZY FUNKY. I was aiming to delete “life coaches”, spam bots, folks with eggs as profile pics, and other such nonsense.. if you’re a normal person (especially someone who’s interacted with me before!), PLEASE don’t hesitate to request a follow. Seriously. I feel horrble.
But the reality of the situation is this: there are people out there who are abusive online. They are abusive with your pictures, with your name, with your family.. they have little to no respect for anything having to do with you. There seems to be a feeling of “If you put it out there, it’s fair game” and maybe that’s justified. I just know that I don’t like my kids being “out there” and quite frankly I don’t like worrying that everything I “put out there” is up for critique.
I don’t know and I’m still torn about it. Part of me believes that the open flow of ideas is what social media is. The other part of me is all Momma Bear about it. Momma Bear almost always wins, because I’d rather err on the side of caution.
I started this for a reason. Hell if I can remember what that is.
I’ll tweet about it when I think of it.
AMEN. I go through this every few months it seems when someone on Facebook irritates me one time too many. I keep my Twitter locked, and I’m pretty quiet about my blog. Sometimes it just gets to be too much noise.
(That said, I’m really glad that we’re still fb friends because I love keeping up with your posts).
bessie.viola wants you to read ..call from the governor
I remove and block people from FB frequently. If you’re an ass, I don’t need to see you in my FB feed.
Where I struggle is that the sane part of me says, “This isn’t worth it, and anything else I say or do will be petty and small and ultimately counter productive to moving forward, so I’m going to remove this person, thing, or situation from my life and move on.”
But the Italian part of me says, “I. Will. Eff. You. Up.”
Fortunately, the sane part of me always wins. Well…usually.
I am relieved you girls are diligent and discerning regarding who has access to your information. Please remember to be selective in what you put in writing…it usually will come back to bite you in the derriere!
I hate that new twitter won’t let you remove followers. I had to switch back (I think on a browser where I hadn’t already dismissed that option). New twitter sucks anyway. I click on a tweet and it freezes my browser while it takes it’s sweet time loading it. My computer isn’t the fastest thing ever, but it can run creative suite, so I think it should be able to load a tweet.
Well, I believe I made it on your FB friends list, but I hope you are still following me. I know I am one where I have my Twitter posts as private so i HOPE I am not the one who annoyed you so. :-/
No, no, no, my dear Carol – we’re all good! (And I’m sure I still follow you!)
Great post! I just did this on my own Twitter account last month. It has made me enjoy Twitter so much more now that I no longer have to sort through spambots and other nonsense.
Shannon wants you to read ..Bridesmaid Dress Woes
I hear you. (And I’m glad I still have the privilege of “hearing” you on-line. You’re funny & witty & say many things I’m too lazy to say myself!) I try not to post too much about my kids, but when I do, they have aliases; since they have no say in what I say, I do try to protect them. Beside, most everyone who does care about my kids knows their names; likewise, I try not to use other kids names much unless I know the parent is really cool with it.
I keep my FB friends low, mostly because I don’t want to bore anyone I might actually want to make a good impression upon!
(If you cut me from the Twitter list, that’s fine; I don’t have a phone I can Twit from easily, and I can’t find anything to Twit about at the computer. I’ll let the world know if that changes.)
Thanks for being a voice of sanity.
I’ve started doing this, too. Life’s too short for all the noise. FB makes my skin crawl a bit, but I think the more I cull my friend list, the better my experience will be. Twitter isn’t as bad, but there is still some refining to do there. I don’t have kids, though. If I did, I think my Momma Bear would come out swinging.
I have yet to weed out my Facebook as I only allow people to be in there that I know. I’m not interested in having tons of Twitter followers so I never follow something simply because it’s following me! I have a friend from college who constantly complains on Twitter about “snobs” who don’t follow back and I wonder why that’s such a big deal. Privacy is a good thing!
I had to go check FB to see if I made the cut! I would have been kind of mad… Also, I told my cousin I would ask you what brand clock you bought for Tony. She’s in the market for something like it.
What’s a “Twitter” “>}