Great post Josh. I’m sure Dylan was also some inspiration. I do not have children yet, but I’m sure spending time with them will trump spending time tweeting. BTW, I am alone at work, so I am not ignoring anyone while writing this comment. I hope all is well with your family, I think of you often.

DUDE! ASHTON KUTCHER’S ON TWITTER?!?! It’s totally ‘legit’ to me now.

(Britt told me to say that. Lots of giggling).

Welcome back homeboy, glad you turned comments on.

http://20.media.tumblr.com/91wJ5FjbSmsxass4qTasMfjKo1_500.jpg

i think i am beginning to resonate with you. there is a bubble about to burst.. i can feel it.

My month away from Twitter and Facebook was pretty nice. I realized that I was spending too much time trying to figure out how to sum up my every thought in 140 characters or less. I’m big on being succinct, but that’s a little off.

After the Kutcher-Oprah thing, I realized that Twitter had easily jumped the shark… and since it doesn’t draw any attention to my blog, nor do the people I follow (who are in the same basic industry I’m in) particularly engage me in conversation (or reply), I’ve pretty much decided Twitter is useless.

On Facebook, if I get one more freakin’ suggestion to be a fan of “flip-flops,” I’m going to go nuts. It’s gone the way of MySpace, which became tantamount to… okay, I won’t type what I’m thinking. Enough said.

And nobody lives with me. So this, and the conversation I had with the lady at Charter Communication, count as my social interaction for the day.

Well said friend.
Did I warn you kids would change you?

Anyways, I appreciate your critique. As a stay at home parent, I’ve found the social media stuff a nice outlet when I’m sitting at home during the kids naps.

It has it’s place, but there sure is a lot of noise.

And I think David just snagged that image from my blog…

http://tumblr.tryingtofollow.com/post/100751027/talking-about-facebook-tjpytheas-poobah

Sorry, had to throw that last one in.

I need digital validation!

Bang Bang is a great album. As for web friends verses flesh friends, I’d love to have more of the latter; I just don’t know how.

Dude, I’m looking forward to the day when you and I can sit down with a warm cup or a cold beer (or whatever) and shoot the breeze about things like this.

You have your finger on the problem and the tension I’ve been thinking about and trying to deal with for about a year now.

One the one hand, I love the decentralizing tendency of social media. I’m drawn to that and it inspires me. But on the other hand, the power of “going flat” can very quickly get lost in the noise, the dominance of moguls like Kutcher and Oprah, and the outright bullshit. So I don’t really know what’s going to happen. I really hope that some of the true subversive power can be retained. That keeps me going. But the popularity explosion irks me. We’ll see….

ha! sorry about that, ariah. i actually saw it linked on reddit this evening.

word

the aston kutcher thing is lame, but oprahs on facebook? one second….I now have three hundred and seventy FOUR friends. work it oprah, you got it gurrrlll.

It was Oprah and Aston that did it for you? It was the major news outlets scrolling tweets (that is the right language for a twitter post, right?) and treating the comments as actual analysis that confirmed I would never use Twitter.

I agree with Joe about Facebook going the way of MySpace.

Nice to have you posting again.

-mike

wow. . what will your portal page look like now?

you do realize that with a great post like this you are legitimizing blogging right?

Just noticed comments were turned on, good times.

While I agree with your thoughts in regard to the downfall of social media, when touched by the shallow tendrils of celebrity, or misunderstood and miss used by those that follow in the wake of the former, the same general trend can be seen not only on the Internet as a whole, but in everything we use to interact with the other. The true question is, do we let them win, or do we continue in using the platform for good, hopefully offering a redeeming value in an increasingly shallow form of media?

One of your best posts in awhile. (One of your only posts in awhile, but nonetheless!)

I think the same principles can apply to just about any social structure, where once you’re more concerned about your “status” than with the actual people you’re connected with, you’re treading down a dark path. I’m thinking this as it relates not only to social web media, but also to church, politics, the PTA, whatever. Any structure, once it is turned over to the “masses,” will get used to promote oneself.

Glad you turned comments back on. Thank you for opening up this crowd again, as your posts and the ensuing comments always stretched my thinking.
I have a confession: I have never had a Facebook account, or Twitter, or, even Myspace. I could see the allure of Twitter as a shorter blog type of deal, but not to let people know I just bought strawberry ice cream at Kroger.
Thanks Josh!

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU. Twitter is indeed been an excellent tool. Yet these words will be my mantra:

“Beware it’s subtlety. There is no substitute for the real life.”

Can you imagine? I remember playing video games as a kid when I was 7 and yet that was pretty much it until I needed to type a paper when I was in high school. My SENIOR year the INTERNET came out and Clinton even came to plug us in on NET DAY (96). What a ride it has been. I think we are all pretty amazed that the internet has been…what is the word: useful? Yes, timesuck came to mind as well. Yet, I hope that we can remind ourselves that there is life out there…books instead of articles, stories instead of links…a person instead of an image.

remember MTV’s unplugged? gotta love THAT. same thing.

Thank you!

[...] all that stuff), I responded with a big hat tip here, then Josh opened up a bit more here, before finally admitting he was back here. Yeah, crazy week. Glad he’s back [...]