Too Much Information!

Cautionary Note: Rant to follow.

I've been on Facebook for six weeks now. I wasn't certain about it when I started, if you remember. I've checked in with the site a few times each week, but haven't done much more than that with it. I've pretty much decided not to have anything more to do with it.

It's all about TMI! Too Much Information! I don't need to know that FL is about to take a bath. I don't want to know that RT called in sick at work when she wasn't. These are some of the things on "walls."

One "friend" sends me things on a daily basis: virtual candies, religious tokens, holiday observance paraphernalia. This is a woman I barely knew when I was acquainted with her and I haven't seen her in five years. And I'm not the only one she's gifting -- the home page shows me that she's sending all kinds of things to all kinds of people! She's employed full-time in a stressful job, has a workaholic husband, and three little kids. What the heck is going on with her? (rhetorical question)

Then there are the memes. I've pretty much avoided memes in the blog world. They are rampant on Facebook and I've totally avoided them there. I don't want to answer twenty or more questions about my first pregnancy -- was it planned? Did I get the gender I wanted? Holy cow. Is nothing too private to ask? To share? With 81 close"friends"? What happens to a girl who reads her mother's meme and finds out that not only was she an accident, but mom really wanted a boy? There are all kinds of these memes. I took a look at one I was asked to do -- I don't care how many pillows LF has on her bed. I don't want to think about why she has so many, either! I feel like a voyeur!

There are folks who do not seem to realize that once they are "friends" with someone, that person sees everything that they write in their "status." And that some of it is inappropriate for different audiences! The home page today showed me that a young man from my church said something terribly offensive about a fellow with Down syndrome. I didn't need or want to know that he'd said that.

In the interest of keeping irreversible decisions to a minimum, I'm not going to close down the account. Someday I might find a good reason to want to use it. But as for now, I'm going to go weed out my "friends" and delete those who really aren't. And then leave it all alone and get back to sewing!

Oh, and PS: Don't even talk to me about Twitter!