Merry Reduction Day

It is important to remember that sites like Facebook are pieces of software that we can choose to use or not use, just like we choose to use Firefox or Safari or neither.

-If all your friends jumped off of a bridge by Ben Brown, Internet Rock Star, 01.02.08

At one point last fall, I realized I was trying to run five blogs, two Flickr accounts, and a del.icio.us page, all the while keeping up a constant patter on Twitter, IM, and email. Only two of those things were strictly necessary for my work; the rest just made their way into my life somehow. Sure, I was doing a lot of it because it was fun, but I knew I had to scale back or else I was going to end up speaking only in 140-character, hyperlinked sentences.

-Re-evaluating Your Online  Commitments by wood.tang, 43 Folders, 01.01.08

I'm deeming the first Monday of this new year (and possibly subsequent years) Merry Reduction Day. Having already celebrated Happy Introvert Day this year, I'm all about unrecognized holidays in 2008. The point of Merry Reduction Day is this - reduce, re-evaluate, delete (not quite as alliterative as those greener Rs but what are you gonna do? </revrun>).  I feel like I'm everywhere on the web and I'm realizing I don't need to be. I've come to dislike Facebook (after digging it for not being myspace) but now that I have a relatively large network of people there and it is this mixture of work and friends and family, I feel like my chocolate is getting all up in my peanut butter. Plus, I don't think I can take one more super wall post or werewolf invitation (the irony of this, of course, being that I was often the one inviting others to these stupid apps a few months ago). So, on Monday, Facebook is gone.

Also on the potential chopping block:

1. Plaxo
2. 43 Things
3. 43 Places
4. 43 People
5. Shelfari
6. Mog

Most of these don't cause the time suck and brain drain that Facebook does but I maintain them (or let fester) just because and doing so prevents me from doing other important and necessary work or fun. To be honest, the only social network I need is twitter. 140 character bursts from intelligent people I like is so best and I love that the conversation is going 24/7 (but we'll revisit twitter in a later post). Last.fm and twitter are where I spend most of my web social time and there are a few other services I use more for functionality than community but what I'm saying is I don't need all this nonsense. Ben Brown likens Facebook and myspace to Costco or Wal-Mart and he's so right.

I don't want your 60 rolls of toilet paper, free samples, or deals that aren't really deals. I just want to feel connected in meaningful ways with the people that matter to me in the contexts that make the most sense.

So, get ready Monday, it's going to be a great day. Oh, and if you're playing scrabulous with me on facebook, we better hustle and finish and find a fitting alternative to the cool way (facebook does do some things very well) that scrabble is played there.