Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Facebook

     Here's the deal. Facebook is a time hog.
     I put off getting involved with Facebook as long as I could. My goodness. I felt way behind the times. I had this nagging feeling that I had to catch up; that I was lagging; that I was missing out on the world.
     Well. It turns out that I am not missing out on much. Since I have been on Facebook I have seen a couple of cute cartoons, had a few pictures sent from an artist friend that were amazing, a friend sent me an interesting article on a WWI quilt, someone had posted a link to a good recipe (although unless I can convert it to be gluten free and dairy free, and oh yes: sugar free, it may not turn out to be such a great link anyway). There is a lot going on in the world, being posted on Facebook, that I have discovered I am not really interested in. Especially the political stuff.
     I am adult. I know I should be interested in politics. But most of the time I limit my interest to local issues. I vote. I vote on issues that will directly affect me and my family and my community. Other than voting for our representatives (who continually disappoint me) and the President (which, at this point, is a joke thanks to the Electoral College) who doesn't really hold any power over anyone or anything, I find I am left cold by Washington politics. On a whole I find the entire system to be broken with too many people (from both parties) spending too much money, taking too many perks and buy offs and acting like spoiled, demanding children, who think it is permissable to be immoral and that they are above the law.
     OK. Now that I got that little rant out of my system, back to Facebook...
     I decided to join in the fun early last month. I had been told by a mentor author friend of mine that I was going to have to get involved in social media if I want to be successful in the self-publishing world. I put it off as long as I could. It was one of those thoughts in the back of my mind that repeatedly said, "Do you realize how many people in the world use Facebook? Do you know how big of an audience you could have for your writing? Do you think about the potential for books sales that are out there on Facebook? What? Don't you want to be successful?"
     The answer to all of those questions is, "Of course I do!" so I finally succumbed to the pressure and the possibilities and joined in. But I have discovered that it takes an enormous amount of time and energy to be "active" on Facebook. The pressure is killing me. I need to read. I need to sew. I need to blog, because after all this is the heart of what I like to do.
     So I will continue on Facebook, but my heart isn't really in it. You can bet I won't be enlarging my circle of friends any time soon. I have more than enough "friends" to keep up with now (especially those that post their every movement and thought every day, all day...you know the kind...) I just can't handle the pressure.

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