E-Media Tidbits

Machfive, via Flickr (CC license) Is this how social media makes you feel? Join the club.

Jim Lackey -- a Facebook friend of Amy's, but not of mine (note to Jim: Since we're both friends of Jim Brady, he of washingtonpost.com fame, I really ought to "friend" you soon) -- responded to Amy's query.

Lackey wrote: "One potential drawback: If you start a new Facebook group and I join it, does that mean I'll feel like I have one more group to check on? I'm already in too many groups that I never have time to visit!"

To which I say: Testify, brother! Jim, you've asked the question of the moment.

I -- like Jim, Amy, and (I'm guessing here) you -- are beginning to suffer social network circuit overload. It is the '07 version of the '06 RSS feed flameout, the '04 bookmarking debacle, and the '02 e-mail catastrophe.Take my social networks, please:

• Joining blog reader communities was a kick at first -- I regularly ventilated my opinions at about five. Then I launched by own blog, and needed to tend to that community.

• Next came LinkedIn, with its invitations, closed-circuit e-mails, questions and "see who's checked out your profile" gimcracks.

• NetVibes isn't much of a community, but it sends me dozens of RSS feeds -- some from blogs whose communities I still participate in.

• Next up, Facebook, and all the good people I've gathered there -- followed by the inevitable Facebook groups that spawn additional interactions with like-minded strangers.

• Oh, and the wiki I've set up for about a dozen folks I'm collaborating with on a year-long project. Lots of discussion threads to follow there.

• Oh, I forgot, the Technorati tags I track.

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It's getting to the point where I hardly have time for my full-time job, which of course is responding to e-mails.

My point is that this is unsustainable, for me and for all of us who by virtue of good intentions have been sucked into the social network vortex. We have become servants of a networks of networks of our own making.

The only way to regain control at this point is to drop out, tune out and log out. Or, less apocalyptically, pick one or two communities that matter the most personally and professionally and [respectfully, regretfully as appropriate] step away from the rest.

So: Amy, please don't set up that Facebook group. And Jim, please don't be offended if I don't friend you on Facebook. If you want to talk, just drop me an e-mail.

Guest contributor Craig Stoltz is a Web consultant and former editor at washingtonpost.com and Revolution Health. He blogs at Web 2.Oh. . .really?