Dissolution

[darkemeralds]

Is anyone else trying to re-figure out how to have an online life? Is anyone else feeling that Google+ is cool but how many more social networks do I need? Does anyone else wonder if there's still a place for a journaling site like Dreamwidth and LiveJournal in their life?

I'm finding G+ very homey--more succinct than here, not quite as flighty as Twitter. Less conversational than here, but more interactive than Tumblr. It feels like a comfortable stream of connection.

Of course, it's new. Not many people are on it yet. Everyone's behaving like early guests at a nice party, so it's also much less contentious than here tends to be sometimes. (I have invites, by the way, if anyone wants one.)

Journaling/blogging has been a mostly wonderful experience for me for the past six years or so, but I feel it slipping away as a concept. I hate to let it go, but fighting the flow seems futile. Does anyone else feel that way?

Comments

[ravurian]

Hmm. Something in me loathes the idea of constant access, and of people having constant access to me. I felt utterly liberated when my phone was stolen back at the beginning of the year, and when my laptop wasn't functional. I won't be joining G+ - it's just something I've no interest in discovering. Ditto Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr. I'm not much interested in disposable electronic voyeurism, or unfiltered pseudo-telepathy in quite that way. Which, I appreciate, sounds rather more judgemental and dismissive than I meant it to be.

None of which waffle addresses your questions. I... am finding it hard to get back online recently. I'm ambivalent about whether I want to - I do and I don't. I do miss writing in my journal, and the connection I had with people through it, though.

[darkemeralds]

Yeah, I didn't even consider sending you a G+ invite because it seemed pretty clear that it wasn't your cup of tea.

Personally, I love the constant access and don't find it the least bit invasive. Isn't that curious? I would attribute it to my living alone and having a personality that puts me at significant risk of isolation, but that's kind of glib. I don't know--it just feels good to me, comforting, somehow, to know that the world is within reach. And I'm pretty comfortable with the off-switch, too.

Part of the reason I've drifted over to the Google side is that I've found things here on DW more contentious than I'm comfortable with.

The word "comfortable" appearing twice in this comment is probably fairly revealing.