How many social networking sights is too many?

I’ve recently become a little addicted with the world of social networking sights. This time last year, I had none. All I had was my photobucket website, which I used to direct my family and friends from back home, so they could see all my photos while I was out on the road. I then semi regularly sent an email to all those who were interested (and perhaps a few who weren’t) to keep updated on my goings on. I was ok with this. It seemed to work.

Now though, it’s a different story.

It started while on the road in Eastern Europe last summer. A couple of friends started talking about their blogs, and al off a sudden it started to sound better.

Why send an email to your friends every now and then, when you can just periodically update your blog and let the whole world read it. Coz after all, I’m sure they’d be interested….wouldnt they?

It didn’t stop there though. Soon after returning ‘home’ to the UK from the trip, I signed up to Myspace, and soon found a bunch of friends (both new and old) who had the same, and started adding them to my friends list. It became addictive in itself, putting in the names and email addresses of everyone you’ve ever met, to see if you could find them.

I started to become a bit of a spruiker for myspace. Well, it is a great way to keep in contact with the dozens of friends you meet while travelling. Having them in your email contacts is one thing, but having them as your ‘friend’ on Myspace, well that’s heaps more special isn’t it?

I decided not to add people who I didn’t already know at least a little bit. I figure you could get massively caught up having all sorts of people as your ‘friends’ just for the numbers, but end up with a bunch of total strangers. And whats the point in that?

So my Myspace friends list consists of about 30 odd people, most of whom are people I’ve met in the last 20 months – since I left Aus – with a few other friends from home.

The problem starts coming when there’s people with a different addiction. I started finding people who prefer Bebo and Facebook. It's like being a social alcoholic and ending up at a club full of people tripping off their heads and listening to doof doof. It may be similar, but it aint the same! And these things seem a bit like whether you’re a Ford or Holden person (sorry for the Aussie reference) – you just don’t switch. So what do ya do if you want to keep in touch with these people do?

Well you do what I did and open up an account in each of these too. Thing is, now I have accounts with Photobucket, Blogspot, Myspace, Facebook and Bebo. How do I keep all of those updated – letting people I kind of know read really boring stuff about me – without losing my life to the internet?

Ah of course – that’s what an office job is for!