I have a confession to make.
For the past year or so, I have been merely "going through the motions" of using the newest social networking technologies.
True, I have been dutifully maintaining (ok, "maintaining" may be too generous) my MySpace and Facebook profiles. I signed up with Twitter and I've even twittered more than 20 times (granted, that's over the course of two months; I've already been chided for my lame tweets). I use the EchoDitto del.icio.us feed, and even started a personal one. One thing I'm on top of: I'm a dedicated updater of my Gmail status messages.
But the usefulness of all of this just hadn't clicked for me. Until today.
There was no earth-shattering revelation, no life-changing lesson inspired by a friend's Facebook update. Rather, it was a slow dawning of realization, built up over several month's use of these tools, of they way they facilitate what I can only describe as "shared being."
It reminds me of living on campus in college. When living in a dorm, usually in close enough proximity that you can shout and be heard by several friends, there is a constant exchange of ideas. Sometimes these ideas are of little value, but sometimes they're really clever, or creative, or brilliant. And the fact that you can bounce those ideas off your friends in your dorm, or in the dining hall, allows the ideas to grow into something really great. I really loved that about being in college -- the constant flow of ideas. And the feeling that we're sharing it all with one another -- the boring, inconsequential stuff as well as the epiphanies.
That's the feeling I get with these new social tools. Thanks to these technologies that allow me (and my friends) to broadcast our thoughts to the universe -- in a way that's so quick and easy that it takes almost no more effort than talking -- I can stay in touch with what the people important to me are thinking and doing, whenever they choose to share it. I learn an enormous amount from a friend of mine who twitters about the various web projects she's exploring. I get great ideas (and much amusement) from my friends who include cool links in their Gmail status messages. I'm smarter for having read friends' and coworkers' del.icio.us feeds. It's as though we're all sitting around the dining hall table, sharing whatever's on our minds. And it's really cool.
So, ok, I'm converted. I've got to go twitter this now.
