MySpace, Facebook, Twitter...When Does it All Become Too Much?

MySpace, Facebook, Classmates, LinkedIn, and Reunion.com are just a few websites I've been affiliated with over the years. A couple weeks ago, my Cousin, a longtime Mac Genius, and I were talking about our breaking points when it came to online social websites. He had reached his breaking point about 3 years ago, when he finally had enough of being so...out there. He had reached a point in his life where just about everyone in the South who owned a Mac computer knew who he was. People were starting to find him online, on various websites, and it started bothering him. It was just too much, so he closed all of his accounts, breathed a sigh of relief, and hasn't looked back.

I thought long and hard about his reaction, because I've moved around a lot and have been in and out of the public eye for many years, but decided that I hadn't come to that point yet. While friendly, I'm quite antisocial, but I still enjoy the occasional connection with a former classmate or Marine buddy. I've reconnected with many people over the years, even if it was just a casual iPassing. I always enjoyed the wall that the Internet put up between me and the other person. Then, everything changed over a period of several days, as if the universe was trying to tell me that I didn't really listen to my Cousin's words.

First, there was a quasi-stalker who's been following and E-following me around since 1998. We were in a Marine Corps school at the same time in 1997. He decided we were destined to be BFFs, even though I didn't like him or his personality. After I left the Marine Corps, he began finding my unlisted telephone numbers, no matter which state or country I moved to. A couple days after my conversation with my Cousin, he contacted me for the second time on Facebook in a year. I had already denied his friend request once, but he didn't take the hint. More recently, he tried to contact me on Classmates and Reunion.com. Despite my silence and refusal to accept his requests, he's still trying to contact me, and it annoys both me and my husband.

The next day my mother [sic], whom I had stopped contact with several years ago because she is completely mad, sent a scathing E-mail to me after sending a friend request to my Facebook account. She was infuriated that I never responded. She had also tried to befriend me on LinkedIn. She was trying to reconnect, but all of my notifications were going to an old E-mail account I had designated for spam. I never received those notifications, not that I would have acknowledged them. I didn't learn about any of this until she E-mailed me.

In her crazed E-mail, in all of its bi-polar glory, she combined backhanded compliments, blatant insults, ignorant judgments, and a weird "pre-apology" for sending that very E-mail in the first place. Thankfully, she stomped off, figuratively, and once again promised never to contact me again. It was a nasty E-mail, which I deleted at once without hesitation, but I had finally started to see what my cousin was talking about. After years of feeling healed and balanced, she came back into my life for a split second like the Tasmanian Devil, stirring up flashbacks and negative feelings, and was gone just as fast. I had faced a new truth. By belonging to so many online social websites, I had become too public for my own good.

As if that wasn't enough, my Mother-in-law starting following me around online. First it was Facebook, then LinkedIn, and then a couple small bookmarking websites. Finally, on the same day my mom contacted me, she began following me on Twitter. I never used these accounts, but had them so I could keep current with online trends. I love my Mother-in-law. She's an amazing person, but with all of the recent contacts, I felt closed in. As soon as I saw her request, I went on a cancellation frenzy. Facebook, Twitter, Classmates, Reunion.com, Twitter - all of these accounts were cancelled in less than 5 minutes. I felt free.

Now I'm only affiliated with two social websites; a Marine-only site, and MySpace, because I work in the niche. Thankfully, I designed that account to remain fairly anonymous. People who have searched hard have found me, but very few have, and I've never received a friend request from my stalker.

Lately, I've been hearing about more and more celebrities using Twitter, and I found myself wondering why they would want the extra publicity. Maybe, even despite the hounding of the paparazzi, they haven't hit their breaking point yet.

When is enough, enough? How exposed will we all be before everyone tires of the stimulation of having our every thought, and all of our experiences written out online? Will there ever be a backlash on MySpace, blogs and blurb sites? Maybe one-hundred years from now, everyone will be burnt out and living as offline recluses.

Perhaps the real question is, what fueled our neediness in the first place? Millions of teens on MySpace are finding their entire life's validation by obtaining hundreds of thousands of friends on their accounts and by collecting and returning as many picture comments as possible. Why do people feel compelled to record every single thought, no matter how random and inconsequential, into blogs? Why must we Digg? Why do so many spend every waking moment chatting in online game rooms instead of taking care of their children? Why do people troll dating websites instead of taking a look in the mirror and figuring out what they can change to attract a mate offline, and in person?

I don't hate the Internet. The Internet and computers in general have been my resume fodder for the past seven years. It's been my family's second income, and ironically, it's how I reconnected with my long-lost cousin from the first paragraph. I'm not suggesting that anyone change their online habits, but just take a step back for a minute and ask yourself, "Why?" And, "How much is too much?" You might learn something about yourself and the world around you.