Socializing: The Online Trap

Why are you online? What got you started? Chances are it had something to do with socializing. As great as it is to meet people from around the world while sitting in the comfort of your own home, it’s also a pressure cooker. In part being involved with any group can be a lot of work, keeping up with people, not missing birthdays and other events and just finding information about whatever hobby, idea or interest you have in common. However, when the group is online there is added pressure.

People have come to think anything online should give them instant gratification. Websites should load in seconds, emails should be replied to within a day or sooner and a group isn’t active if you don’t see current posts, nothing as old as yesterday will do. People have spoiled themselves.

Being part of an online group is tough if you want to be involved. You will be unable to read everyone’s blog and keep up with every post to the email list. So forgive yourself and don’t expect anyone else to do better. Keep a list of communities and resources that you really value and stick with those, leave other sites as secondary for when you have extra time or energy. Pace your involvement. Use your bookmarks to make it easy to jet to each site. Keep a blog as a notemaker and use the tags feature so you can flip to each topic which interests you. This way you can be organized and have access to that information no matter where you travel or should your computer have trouble and leave you without a hard drive.

[tags]social, weblog, chat, boards, personal, reading[/tags]