Before I do my assignment, I think I should confess that I am afraid of RSS. I already wake up in the middle of the night wondering about something and have to go google information about it. I sit in my driveway or drive around the block so I can hear the end of a story on NPR. I don't want to miss anything. So, if I subscribe to a lot of feeds, where will I find the discipline to skim and move on? Definitely something I will have to work on.
Now to the assignment. I really identified with Patrick Higgens' Admission from my Tech & Learning feed. He admits that social networks make him feel more connected to family and friends instead of the dire warnings that they will feed the trend of increasing social isolation. I feel the same way. By gathering most of my friends and family in one place, I can very quickly keep up with the little things going on in their lives. For friends that have moved far away and are very busy with careers and children, connections generally go from occasional emails to yearly Christmas cards to nothing. With online social networks, you can keep up with so many more people in the time it used to take to maintain ties with just a few. Those yearly Christmas cards have turned into frequent updates and conversation. More face to face meeting are scheduled too. So, while I think children need to be taught about levels of friendship and discretion in posting, social networks are a positive thing in my life.
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I think you have to give yourself permission to have a lot of things to read in your reader. We just have to let some things go and know we'll get to them when we get to them.
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