write.as/jonbeckett

Returning to writing a personal blog on a regular basis this year has made me realise something – I live in too many places online. I'm tempted to use an analogy to describe my predicament – perhaps spinning plates – but I work with somebody who uses analogies to describe absolutely everything, so will not dare for fear of inducing the same glazed look upon readers as he garners on rooms full of people during conference calls and presentations.

Even though I only really frequent the “big name” social networks, it's still an act of supreme idiocy to think that Ican take part in any more than a couple of them in any meaningful way. If you read the platitudes extolled by the likes of the “pro bloggers”, you would be mistaken in thinking that each network has a niche use – Twitter for the mundane, Tumblr for the creative, Instagram for slices of life, Wordpress for thoughts, and Facebook to stalk the hell out of that person that said something nastyabout the photo of your children's school project board five years ago.

The reality of the social networks isn't so much in how we use them – it's in the content that already exists in them, and that we are quickly washed away by if we so much as set foot on their shores (ah crap – that's nearly an analogy, isn't it).

Let's look at the big names, and what their real utility might be:
Twitter
The perfect place to drip meaningless content into a vast, fast flowing river. You are one voice among millions, and even if thousands follow you, nobody is listening. The real value is in discovering the colour of Kim Kardashian's underwear seconds before celebrity websites cause an earthquake through simultaneous hammering of keyboards as they breathlessly report it throughout the world.
Tumblr
While feeling good about yourself, Tumblr is the perfect place to invest time in order to realise that no, you don't really matter that much. No matter how creative you think you might be, a photo of a kitten, or some girl's ass is always going to attract far more attention than your thoughts about world hunger, or insightful commentary about the day.
Facebook
Best suited to family, friends, and psychotic people you once knew or went to school with who you will one day “un-friend”, and receive hate mail from. Sharing anything invites long forgotten acquaintances to stalk you to the ends of the earth, pass comment on everything you say or do, and/or seek attention in the dead of night with soporific sob stories.
Wordpress
Perfect for long rambling tomes of navel gazage. If you've always wanted to write a novel about yourself in 20,000 parts, this is the place to do it. You can enable all manner of social sharing gadgetary, but it will not be used because in reality you're the only person remotely interesting in your own life.
Instagram
Who knew that a sandwich could look so inviting when the light hits it at that angle? Who knew that the girl you've kind of known online for several years would get quite so drunk, and post quite so much of herself while playing with a friend's “selfie stick”, and then delete all evidence hours later? Who knew that you would take quite so many photos of railways station platforms ?

I kind of feel guilty for ripping into the social networks, but really... no. I don't feel guilty at all.

We allchoose to take part in this insane merry-go-round of information over-sharing. We all post the most mundane rubbish, and tell ourselves that the more weird it is, the more interesting it is. We sit in bed in the early hours, taking a final look at our email, or our instant messages, just to make sure that we haven't missed some vital word from somebody or other we have never met, or to watch yet another animated gif, or contrived “epic failure”. We wince as yet another skateboarder crushes his nuts on a railing, or another mountain biker eats a yard of dirt. We fall asleep with the Kindle propped against our chest in bed, half-way through the fifteenth half read book that we will not finish.

And then we wake up and do it all again, and again, and again...