Facebook Domination

On October 3, 2010 I finally succumbed to peer pressure and joined the Facebook community. Initially, I was overwhelmed. Then I became addicted. It was only in December that I realized it had become something of a problem for me.

Since joining Facebook, my blog posts dwindled to nigh nonexistent.
 This correlation puzzled me for a few weeks until I finally realized that my typical posting time was being used up by Facebook time. The end of a workday, or the early evening, when I would normally post, was now spent catching up on this whole world. What had Laurell K. Hamliton tweeted? Did Karen Marie Moning or Katie MacAlister post a blog? A quick Facebook tidbit? Had my friends linked to any cool, must-see articles? Had random strangers I used to know shared something embarrassingly intimate about themselves?

Bombarded by this whole new level of mini-stories from friends and corporations and authors and artists and TV stars, my thoughts were overstimulated into lethargy. After checking Facebook, I no longer had the energy to craft a blog post.

It's only in the last few weeks that I've reached saturation and began to filter and pare the Facebook postings down. I know, I took a while to catch on. I've learned to hide posts from a plethora of people who I didn't really care about and whose posts drained my energy. I'm learning to skim.

I'm also learning to separate my Facebook time into smaller, strategically allotted portions; I never check it before writing for the day, before work, or even right after I finish either of these tasks. I need the buffer to allow my thoughts to settle into workable patterns and rhythms. I'm not a multitaskers at that level. Facebook caters to those with ADD, which I do not have—though I could see how Facebook could help me develop it.

It was a completely unexpected learning curve, and one that I'm glad I hurdled at this phase in my writing life, not when I launched with a published title.

However, Facebook has given me a new opportunity to spread the word about debut authors. Number One Novels can now be found on Facebook here. What's next? Twitter? Maybe...but not yet. My Facebook experiences have left me wary of adding another social network (read: time suck) to my life. Cody recently jumped into the world of Twitter, but I'm content to watch from the sidelines. For now.