Anti-Social Follow-Up

My last post doesn't make this clear: I'm not categorically against the social web. One of the things I love most about the Internet is how it creates communities of common interest. I'm also a fan of innovation and dabbling:

• I joined LibraryThing in November 2005, but it wasn't until I discovered the blog widget nearly a year later that I really started using it.
• I first tried Twitter in April 2007, but it was annoying and useless. This spring, after more people I actually know had joined, I reanimated my account, and have found that I've enjoyed the random messages from friends during the day.
• I created my del.icio.us account in December 2005. Intellectually, I know it's a good and useful service, but I'm still struggling to integrate it into my daily life.

And that last point is the one I seem to be struggling to make: judging these services based on whether they supplement or augment my life and enrich the pursuit of the interests I already have, rather than add random activities and on-line responsibilities. It's actually kind of cool that so many people I already know are on Facebook, and that when I joined, my network of these "friends" grew so rapidly. But Facebook doesn't integrate neatly into my life; instead it presents me with something else to do. That "something else" is certainly fun, but I feel somehow that I'm doing what Facebook wants me to do, not what I want to do.