I Don’t Wanna be Linked In No More

First of all, who the @@#%* has time for social media? I get updates all day long that my so-called friends are reading Harry Potter or eating soup or depressed or worried about the cubs or thinking about puppies . . . who cares???!! Who created this dreadful tourrettes-like need for constant attention? I realize it’s a generational thing, but then again there are no 20-somethings on my facebook list. These are all busy, working professionals. And I’m exhausted just trying to keep up with everyone’s so-called social plans. Two of my european friends post their musings in french. Since I can’t read them, I can only assume they’re telling me that they, too, are against global warming. Or just watched “Blue Lagoon” on cable.

Maybe I’M the loser. Maybe I’m not connected enough! Maybe I need to fill in everyone with my little rituals. Hey! Tom is watching “Who’s the Boss.” Hey! Tom is angry @ Alphonso Soriano. Hey! Tom needs to clip his toenails but he has socks on. Hey! Who Cares?!

But worse than the facebook complex is LinkedIn. Or, as we call it at the agency, SuckedIn. Apparently, its use is as a networking tool. Apparently, I’m supposed to share all of my contacts with random people I once knew, sometime during my career. These are the same people, btw, whose phone calls I no longer return. And now I’m supposed to give them access to all the people I DO stay in contact with? My informal, unscientific survey shows most of the people who want to be “linked in” with me have either recently been let go, or worked with me 20 years ago. I guess they got tired of updating the status of their cats on facebook and switched over to linkedin.

i’m just trying to figure out what the next personal medium will be. You know, there was Friendster, then MySpace, then Facebook. Maybe it’ll be called Boredster . . .