Social Media Overload

Does your Twitter also update your Facebook status? Do you have an RSS feed of your Posterous, which updates your blog as well as your Jaiku, Identi.ca and Plurk streams? Are you a Blip.fm DJ and a YouTube Vlogger who also makes guest appearances on 12seconds.tv?

Then perhaps, like me, you’re a little social media overloaded. Keeping track of all your social media channels can be extremely confusing, not to mention overwhelming. Sure, there are helpful feed aggregators like Profilactic, FriendFeed or Correlate.us that are suppose to make our social media lives easier by, well, aggregating all our social media contacts and channels. But have you ever wondered if perhaps we’re over-extending ourselves in the social media realm? Have we started an unhealthy obsession with social media?

We amass gratuitous amounts of friends and followers for no other reason than it seems to be the thing to do. We feel compelled to post updates about real social engagements, during said social engagements. We friend brands…which is kind of like deluding ourselves into thinking, “that stripper from last night really liked me” when, in fact, all she wanted was to lighten your wallet. And I’m guilty of all of it.

Actually, I think I need a personal assistant just for my online persona. I'm overloaded with this stuff, but sadly, I’m addicted and I'm not going to stop. It’s too late for me (though maybe, one day, I’ll look into social media rehab) but it’s not too late for most people. Save yourselves!!!

A wise man once Tweeted me, “Just because you use social media, doesn’t mean you’re being social.”

Social media can be great for entertainment, networking, and just keeping your finger on the pulse, but it's not the end-all be-all of social existence and, like anything else in life, it must be consumed as part of a well-balanced diet of real human interaction and social exercise.

So before it’s too late…stand up, walk away from the computer and go do something social in the real world.

Call some friends and go out for dinner or drinks. Throw a party. Head to a bar and see how many cheesy pick-up lines you can use before you get your face slapped numb. And for the love of God, please don’t put the fun on hold to give us play-by-play updates; the rest of us are too busy blogging to care.