I recently read your article, "For the Plugged In, Too Many Choices" and agree with you in saying that we have way too many choices when it comes to social media outlets. I think that as time goes on there will just be more and more sites added into our lives. More than half of the sites you mentioned I had actually never heard of and some surprised me when it came to their functionality. You explained the uses for sites like Buffer, SocialOomph and TwitResponse in that they, "allow users to write postings months in advance and schedule them for publication at a later date". I think that the fact that people can in a way plan out their future moves is crazy. If a site like Facebook got to a point where it was saying happy birthday to people for me, or set up a status in advance I wouldn't physically be there when those posts occurred automatically. I think that is just a huge example of how lazy people are getting and how integrated these social media's are becoming in our lives.
You bring up the topic of how people are setting up blocks so that they can't access social sites during work hours, or how some are leaving windows open so that they can constantly be connected to what's going on. I seriously believe that if people continue to use these sites they will lose touch of the actual world around them, not just little notes on people's lives. If people are using these sites 66% more than the past that means we are sitting in front of a computer 66% more. I completely agree with the statement, "some users think all this networking is leading to alienation". I find myself on Facebook and Instagram maybe ten even twenty times a day. I don't understand why we care so much about these sites when in reality most of these people we're following are not vital to our lives at all.
I agree that it's great to keep in touch with others, but there's a difference between staying in touch and just sitting in front of a computer, reading the actions of others. You talk about a man, Graham Hill, founder of TreeHugger and LifeEdited. He talks about managing his time on social networks and actually says, "Some day, he hopes to hire someone to edit and post content for him so he can spend more time off-line". I think that is absolutely absurd. If we as humans get the point where we need others to speak for us because there are too many social sites to keep up with then we are definitely too overwhelmed and will be living completely different lives. We will be living the actual life we live and the life of the person who is in front of the computer for us. I know for certain I will never be paying another person to watch my friends and post thoughts and ideas that I'm portraying to be mine.
Sincerely,
Nicole Lengyel
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