Addicted to Social Networking

Hello, my name is Pamela, and I am...

addicted to -- fill in the blank-- : Facebook. Twitter. Blogger. Email.

AKA ... Social Networking.

Anything here on this little typing box with its window on the world that connects me to my peeps and tweeps in San Francisco, New York, Dallas (Texas), Finland, Australia, UK, Vietnam, or Peachtree City. I actually communicate with people all around the world, and I LIKE IT!

I got started with the readers' forum on Harlequin. You know those little books you buy at the grocery store...? I got to talking to authors, other readers ... people from New Zealand, Australia, Paris ... I was hooked.

From there I graduated to Facebook. I started with just family, but then I learned I could talk with old friends from college, and then new friends I met said they were on Facebook too, and ... Well, now I'm there all the time. I've got two pages, belong to three groups ... I don't know how it happened; it just snowballed.

Some friends from there all started blogging, so I did too. People shared my blog on Facebook and wrote nice comments, especially when I blogged on bacon.

Then I got a Twitter account.

At first I was timid ... everybody seems to know everybody else on Twitter. It's like you're walking into the high school cafeteria as the new kid ... in January. All the cliques are set, the tables are full, and you're standing there, with a tray full of lunch and nobody to talk to. I started following my Facebook friends, then the next day, people I didn't know were following me. At first I was surprised and flattered (wow!), but then I figured out how many of them were bots and spammers. But I learned to separate them from the real people with whom I shared common interests: writing, reading, funny quotes by cats, world events, technological trends, families, food.

I even found Patch on Twitter, streaming school board and Chamber of Commerce meetings.

Huh ... Local newstuff. Important things in my own community that's good to know, like the upcoming industrial park, and shortages in taxes affecting our schools.

But other important things to know for me, as a writer ... like new publishers launching, old agents who are closed to new submissions, General Hospital being retired, and Ashton Kutcher will be on TV again, movie companies wanting extras for -fill in the blank-.

All in 140 characters. Things move fast on Twitter; faster on TweetDeck!

But lately I have come to notice my connections with people around the world are not connecting me to those who run up the A/C and water bills, eat my brownies, and fill up the laundry hampers: my family. Hero comes home, and the LAST thing he wants to do is anything involving a computer. My boys ... well, they're texting me from downstairs—"When's dinner?"—so I know it's the Matrix I'm up against there.

But, with high schoolers comes wisdom (AKA gray hair): kids learn and model what they see. Mom's addicted to soaps, kids get hooked on soaps. Mom's online ... bingo!

There used to be a commercial I hated when I was in high school and dateless on a Saturday night. Just before Saturday Night Live and Samurai Tailor—"It's 10 o'clock...do You know where Your children are?"

Yep ... BBC's Top Gear site online.

So ... I acknowledge my addiction. I see my behavior. I have a plan. I'm limiting myself to a few hours of networking on weekdays only. Family time without Facebook, Twitter, and Blogger on weekends.

It's not easy, but neither is mowing the lawn while texting.