I have been a social media delinquent.  After spending last weekend overnight in the ER and then on bedrest for two days I have been exhausted all week.  Add travel for meetings two hours away 3 days out of the week for work and "plans" every night after work and I have been so unplugged from social media I'm a little ashamed.  I've barely been able to get on enough to Tweet and Facebook update a link to my Relay for Life page asking for donations (cause on top of being exhausted I attempted to stay up for 26 hours straight to raise money for the American Cancer Society.)

And then it hit me and I wondered a bit.  Why was I so ashamed?  I felt like I had let my little online community down.  There were links to Retweet, there were Facebook posts to respond to, there were blogs to comment on...and I seemed disconnected and ambivalent.  Granted, its a daunting task trying to catch up on what hundreds of people are doing for 4 days, but there was so much more than that.  Sometimes, I think that I'm too much of a "nice girl" and end up pushing myself way beyond my boundaries.

This is one of the things people seem to fear the most delving into the world of social media.  Some people call it "information overload" I think of it more as "missed opportunities."  Chances to learn more about other people and develop connections with folks across the country that I've never met before.  Because that's what social media is all about.  Making it more than constantly posting links to your own work, selfishly promoting your brand and never engaging, updating on the most mundane topics (I really do not care how your afternoon vaccuuming went unless you have something personal to add or your vaccuum suddenly sprouted arms and began talking to you!) is what make someone interesting and "popular" in the social media world. 

I sucked it up and accepted the fact that 4 days of incommunicado life with my social media peeps, I had to be strategic in my responses so as not to deluge myself in Tweets and Updates.  I went back thru 24 hours of Twitter, 48 hours of Facebook updates, and my Google reader (responding to 4 out of 39 posts.)  I might tackle Brazen or 20SB tomorrow, or I might curl up with a book in my backyard if the weather is as nice as it was today.  Cause at the end of the day, while I miss being away from my online community, there's something to be said for exercising some other cells in my brain and enjoying the day!