Dipping My Toes Into the Warm Waters of Social Networking

Anyone who knows me knows that I’m one of the few people on the planet who’s not on Facebook. And when I say “one of the few on the planet” that’s not much of an exaggeration—there are currently more than 800 million subscribers on Facebook, which is 11% of the world’s population. A staggering number. 11% of the people on earth have Facebook accounts. Is there any thing else that 11% of the world’s population has in common? Religion, for sure; I’m sure there are other things that that many people have in common. But not many.

Anyway, not the point.

In case you’re getting excited and firing up your browser to load up Facebook and “friend” me or “poke me” or put graffiti on my “wall” or whatever it is you do on Facebook, don’t get ahead of yourself. I still haven’t created an account. Sorry, I know it’s inconvenient for you, but I promise I’m not doing it to slight you.

Although... it might seem that way, because aside from Facebook I have taken on other social networking services in a big way:

• I’ve obviously been blogging for a long time. (Since March 17, 2005—over half a decade, people. And although this particular blog is mostly dormant these days, I do have the Bible blog, book blog, and now even a quote blog, which are all pretty active.)
• I’m on LinkedIn
• I’m on Google+, and very much liking it
• I’m using Yammer, which is a social networking site specifically for use within corporations/organizations, so our messages are only for each other, not for the world
• I just today signed up for Twitter, although I doubt I’ll be tweeting much; it’s more so I can follow the tweets of others. (A common use of Twitter these days, I’m led to believe.)

So... with all of this social networking stuff going on, it might be simple stubbornness that’s preventing me from signing up for Facebook. (Even if I love Google+, it doesn’t change the fact that everyone I know is already on Facebook. Again, not much of an exaggeration; my mom is the only person I can think of off the top of my head who’s not on Facebook...)

Does that mean I’ll be signing up for Facebook any time soon? Frankly, I might not have time; what with following the new posts on Yammer and Google+ and keeping up with the twits I’m following, where will I be able to find a couple of hours to set aside for creating a Facebook account? And wouldn’t that be the biggest irony of all? After so many years of my friends telling me (nay, demanding me) to create a Facebook account I am now not creating one because all of the other social networking sites are consuming all of my bandwidth...