With the technology we have today and the many different networking websites available, I'm finding so much easier to keep in touch with friends.
I've come a long way since my college days when I got my first true exposure to high speed access. Before then, I remember the days of dial-up to AOL from the house and the five minutes it took to log on and another 10 for my e-mail to load. But when I got to college, I became a full-fledged e-mail junkie and discovered the world of the internet outside AOL's chat rooms and news.
Then, I dabbled into web page development, which was relatively new for college students. I had a site on Geocities, which they broke down pages into "neighborhood streets" with address numbers. I think I was 7896 South Beach.
That was then, and now I'm suffering from what I call techno-burnout. I'm sure some of you have the same symptoms:
* You have multiple e-mail addresses that you try to juggle and keep them all up. You can't get rid of them, no matter how hard you try, because you have friends who haven't changed your contact info; you're clinging to the off-chance that an old flame will drop a line; or you're still waiting to find out if you won that Olive Garden gift card you're promised once you sent the chain e-mail to 30 of your best friends. For the record, I keep up with four e-mail addresses: one work e-mail, one active personal account, and two inactive personal accounts. For the record, my AOL accounts are inactive.
* You spend an hour a day going through e-mails, and just as much time in regret for having signed up for a free sample tea bag from the Republic of Tea because now you get spam from every tea and coffee warehouse on Earth.
* You're made to carry a leash, er... Blackberry, for work. Having one enables you to carry work wherever you go-- and now wherever I go tends to be where I work. Even if you're sitting in Chili's, enjoying a two-for-one mango margarita and a call comes in. One day, I'm going to call in to staff meeting from my bathroom and flush the toilet. They call it a Crackberry for a reason; once you get one, it becomes an addiction.
* You are Linked In, have MySpace, and your life is plastered in Facebook and you juggle everyone of 'em because most of your friends have one or the other, but not both. Those who swear by Facebook hate MySpace, and vice versa. As for me, I have 'em all now, but Facebook looks like it will emerge the winner.
* You have a blog that you wonder if it's worth keeping because it's only some pervert who reads it, but you have it anyway bedause it's the technological equivalent to talking to a wall.
* You can no longer keep tabs on who e-mailed who last. I think I've lost so many friends because I've ignored 'em all!
Anyway, as much as I complain, I could see some benefit to it all. E-mails are great because I can shoot 'em out quickly without playing phone tag and I could do it during my prime thinking time (10 pm - 2 am) without a bother. As for MySpace and Facebook, I could easily keep up with my friends at my own leisure by looking at their sites and I post pics and stuff for them to keep up on my life (as dull as it may be). Plus, both sites have enabled to re-connect with long lost friends.
And so, techno-burnout will be one of those diseases I will have to cope with as I see no cure in sight. In the meantime, I'll take it out on otheres through Facebook and hurl hot dogs and haggis in the great food fight.
