Becoming Unglued Over Social Media

There was a time before Twitter and Facebook and MySpace...and it was okay, as I recall.

Considering the ease of communication today, I can't deny the value of this social media but I'm beginning to wonder if we've gone into overdrive and are now entering a precarious state of hyper-communication.

Today we had an online jounalism session with the Press Association and Andydrinks got us all set up on Twitter (if we weren't already tweeting).

As I sat at my computer and created yet another online profile, I began to panic. Here I was, becoming yet more available to an infinite number of strangers, sending out yet more information about myself, subscribing to yet more networks and websites...and to what end?

While all of this social media is supposed to make you feel more connected and open, it just makes me feel self-conscious - everything that I say should reflect who I want to be (and not who I was), every picture I post should exhibit a respectable individual (and not the university student with a taste for cider), all this just incase a potential employer should stumble upon me online.

As a journalist-in-training, I'm aware that anything and everything that I make available on these online profiles may impact my employability. So what kind of picture might a potential employer be able to paint of me by collating all of my social media profiles? I'm afraid of the answer.

These thoughts floated through my head as I sat there trying to write my 160-word biography for my Twitter profile. Couldn't even manage that.

I had to take my jacket off - this was really getting to me. If this could happen to me over a simple Twitter account then I wondered how many other people are suffering from social media anxiety.

Natania Barron shared my views at least - and Nancy Marmolejo offered some solutions.

Nancy suggests that we don't let social media creep into our lives to the point that we can't still enjoy a good night's sleep dreaming about sheep and fairydust, not tagging and tweeting.

Well, I'm not going to wait until nighttime to take some time out from my virtual obligations. I'll be spending lunch outside of the office today, chowing down on a chicken sandwich and picking daisies.