It has been blogged about all over the place…do we spend too much time on our computers? Do we read books less? Do we neglect our families? Etc Etc.
And as I sit here with the kids vanished into bike riding joy out ‘there’ somewhere, and the laundry piles up and the kitty litter stinks…..maybe the lure of cyber space is a tad strong these days.
‘Social Media‘ is the big buzz term these days.
We even have ‘experts’ in this field. They talk about it all in blogs and vblogs and podcasts, etc etc.
They go to conferences about it all too.
The mommyblogging world is full of the detrius of this new ‘thing.’ ….Networking sites.
‘Social Networking‘ is the other buzz term these days.
As said, just in the mommy world…the opportunities to ‘network’ with other mommies is numerous.
I am sent copious invites to join this and that NEW networking site ‘just for mommies.’
I have started to say no.
Because reallly…how networked can get? What is the saturation point.
I did read somewhere (yes, this post should be full of links so people will NETWORK with me, but am not feeling very researchy or linky today) that the rumblings of rumours of the whole social networking era starting to lose its lustre – that the bubble may be bursting.
I think it is more like to be reaching a saturation point.
Between the big guns like your Facebooks and Myspaces, and the Twitters and so on, down to the mommy sites, the mommy forums, etc…
How much time can you spend on these places?
And what do you get out of it?
My blogging alone took a lot of time from an old parenting forum that I really liked…mainly because I made REAL friends there.
And shouldn’t that be what it is about?
Are we all making amazing book deals or cool and lucrative connections from all our networking?
Most are not.
We do make friends.
We do learn something….but again, I do think you have to pick and choose where you are spending your cyber time and get out of it what YOU want and not feel the need to cave into some sort of weird cyber peer pressure.
ALL THE OTHER MOMMIES ARE DOING IT!?
RIght??
Ack
I’ve certainly hit my own saturation point. I can’t keep up with all of the networking sites anymore. I use Twitter a lot, I keep a Facebook profile just for friends to find me, and a LinkedIn account for professional use. Then there’s my blog, which has visitors I haven’t even returned the favor for. I want to visit everyone’s blog, but I already have over 150 in my reader as it is. So yeah, I understand. I don’t know how I can do much more at this point.
Christinas last blog post..Forty Years Ago, I Would Have Starved
I think the saturation point will be met and then the “new” sites will stop popping up.
I’m part of a bunch of sites, but I really only keep up with Twitter, it’s giving me exactly what I need from a Social Networking site.
You have to do what’s right for you and find your peeps. That’s what all the mommies should be doing!
Jessica (from It’s my life…)s last blog post..How do I get myself into these situations?