"Maybe I Just Like Talking to Myself": a reflection on my obsession with social media.

Because let's be real.
"Social" Media?  That would require me to be social.

Which you know, I want to be.  It's the rest of the world that's the problem.  I have yet to find the sign taped to my back that says "avoid at all costs" but I'm convinced it's there anyway.

But this isn't really a discussion of why I have no friends.

Social media users can be broken down in one of two ways:
You're either:

The Talker

Or

The Stalker

The Talker wants the world to know their story.  All of it.  Including the editing, revising, and publishing of that story.

They want you to know when they breathe, eat, sleep, etc.  Their thoughts, feelings, emotions, dreams, aspirations, temper tantrums.....

The Stalker gets his/her kicks from watching the Talkers.  The Stalkers amass information regarding the many people they are connected to on these social sites.  They're often heard saying "Did you hear...?"  They know everything.  Everything.

There is,of course, the in-betweens.  You can really think of a spectrum existing between the Talkers and the Stalkers and that would be pretty accurate.

If I were to put myself on that spectrum I would lean very heavily towards the Talker.  I mean really.  ...I have a blog.

...not only do I have the blog, I also have facebook, tumblr, skype and most recently, twitter.

You can find me anywhere, really.  I'm most definitely a Talker.

I like to vent.  I like to have my thoughts and feelings in writing.  I prefer typing them over writing them.  I don't think of my blog like an auditorium, where I know tickets have been bought and I'm going to take the stage.

No.  I think of my blog more like I'm standing on top of a building downtown where there's a lot of foot traffic.  I'm yelling my thoughts and it feels good.  Most people either can't hear or ignore me, but every now and then someone stops and listens and laughs, then goes on with their life.

For me, it's not about the number of followers or friends. I routinely do facebook purges because I just don't care about that little number trying to tell me how many friends I have.  I sure as hell know I don't ACTUALLY have 277 friends.

I know the majority of those 277 could care less about me.  I'm realistic.

I think if I lived in a different time I would have journals.  Lots of them and the majority filled with nonsense.   I think the point of my blogging is to get these thoughts out of my head. I can look back and reflect later. I can see how my feelings have changed and grown because I wrote it down.

I don't care who is listening.  I don't care what you think, unless you're one of my closest friends and I actually value your opinion.  Which, you're probably not.

So really.  Whether it's a long post like this or 140 characters, my social media activity has a lot more to do with ME than it has to do with...being social.

To sum it up: Maybe I really do just like to talk to myself.  Just with social media: people overhear.