Socially Graceful

This week we’re talking about using social media.

If you want to talk about Facebook, I’m there all the time.

You see, twenty years ago I moved to a small town. (Insert your own jokes here.) It isn’t easy.

For many years I tried to avoid Facebook, but all the real friends I had were far from me and few had time to continually email. Besides, they stopped sending pictures. ”I have them on my Facebook” was all I’d hear, so I gave in…and I am so glad I did.
Now I hear from all kinds of old friends and so many new ones. I have made many connections with writers and people who share other interests with me. I have three FB pages. One is for the people who are what I call “People Collectors”, the younger, local moms who asked  at Cub  Scout meetings, “Are you on Facebook? I’ll ‘friend’ you”, even when my grandson was not even in their den. Or people with whom the only thing we had in common was where we worked together years ago, and then there are the relatives of ex-in-laws and ….you get the idea. I’ve tried to keep the ‘Share this if you have the best daughter in the world’ people out of my other, favorite FB, but they slip in.(I’m still trying to figure out how they all have the same, best daughter, because …never mind).

My main FB page has my writer contacts, plus real friends and family that I want to hear from.

If Jesus is judging people by whether they share inane posts on FB about Him or not, I would be very much surprised, (and in a lot of trouble, but I’m willing to bet my soul against that one…literally).

The third is attached to that and is for my other blog on easy entertaining and cooking…I have a million posts on there, particularly a few who stay on their kitchen and run their life there and on FB; it isn’t all that fascinating.

And I have no idea if anyone pays any attention to my few posts there.

I am Linked-In, to what end, I have no idea.

I don’t even know what Tumblr does, but it seems I had to sign up with it years ago to get something from someone, or attempt to.

I got set up on  Disqus to read something by someone sometime. I get notices from them, (which get immediately deleted).

I am also signed up with Google+, but I don’t even know what to do with it. I have missed a bunch of messages on it and I’ll bet people think I’m ignoring them, but I’m not….I’m just not paying any attention to Google +.

As for Twitter, I feel guilty when I get a message that someone is now following me. I usually only tweet to enter contests,( usually Rafflecopter.) I do it on the computer…I can’t imagine reading everything that anyone has to say in a tweet…and there are so darned many of them, especially trying to squint on a phone to do it. Not that I do. I still have a ‘grannyphone”.
(Although I did just tweet about the give-away I have on my easy entertaining and food blog.)

As for my grannyphone, I did break down and start texting on it when I have to. I had to start to receive messages because no one wants to call anymore.(Don’t get me started about txtng. It’s great for leaving messages, but I can multi-task when I’m on the phone. It takes time and attention to sit there with your nose on the screen texting. And I am so slow at it, people keep running over my answers. I hate  that. I will lose it if I tell one more person that I have to go only to have to find my phone again, pick up a text when I have my hands in something and find that someone has texted back: ”k”…they had to bother me again …and really? They have to shorten “OK”?)

And I feel as bad when someone says they are following me in Pintrest, because it’s basically the same deal as Twitter. I know better than to get sucked into looking at things there. It’s a maze I don’t need to get lost in. I have too much to do. Now a sister-in-law has her crochet patterns up on another one, “Craftsy”, which I needed to set up an account on, because some things you just do for some family members. They asked me what MY interests were,I hit one and they started asking all kinds of intricate questions regarding the one. But gee! I don’t run my life around cake decorating…I didn’t even when I ran a bakery! Enough, People.

I have posted, (and will post), book reviews on Goodreads, but reporting what I am reading, what I have read and what I want to read is TMI, and Too Much Time. Who does that all the time? Go take the time to read a good book, for Heaven’s sake!

I found old acquaintances on MySpace long ago, which was interesting. He was a bit famous on his own but you’d really recognize his father’s name right away.He was a young man, and I was a kid. He came in with a family friend and was kind to me.It was nice to speak with him,(I knew he wouldn’t remember me).He was glad to hear that although he thought he was very wrapped-up in himself that he had been considerate at that age. I never would have sought him out and he lives nearly half the world away,but I haven’t been on MySpace in ages…is it even still running?

So, no, I don’t use a lot of social media but I use Facebook to socialize a lot. It has probably saved my sanity, but I guess some of you may be laughing at the thought…that my sanity has been saved.
How about you?