Life Outside the Social Media

I am a fan of social media. I really am. I came later to it than many people, but what's not to like? facebook, Twitter, Blogging, it's all good. Well, mostly good. There's thing thing that's been bugging me ever since I joined facebook and has gotten exponentially worse since I started blogging: How to not talk about social media, when you're spending face-to-face time with your actual friends?

See, when something interesting happens in my life, I usually update my facebook status. When I have a random thought I've got to get out of my head, I tweet about it. When my children do something adorable or something annoys the crap out of me that cannot be contained in 140 or even 420 characters, I blog about it. Some of this is for the other people in my life. My Little Ants blog (my other blog about my kids), for example, exists primarily so that grandparents and other distant relatives can read stories about my boys and I can feel less guilty about the fact that I am horrible at sending pictures regularly. It's separate from this blog so that said grandparents and great-grandparents don't need to sift through my regular tirades to get to adorable stories about their grandkids. And I still love facebook for staying up to date with the lives of my friends whom I don't see as often as I used to. But this blog is pretty much just for me. If I hear something on the radio annoys the crap out of me, I can blog about it instead of yelling at my radio. Well, maybe in addition to yelling at my radio. (It's how I know it'll be a good post. Is it yell at nobody in my car worthy?) Don't get me wrong. I am very happy to have readers. (Hello, readers. *waves*) In fact, I love a good debate and LOVE thought provoking comments.But I truly hope that no one is reading this blog just because they think I'll be disappointed if they don't. Really, people, we've got too much going on in our lives to read blogs we're not interested in. So if everyone I know never reads this blog again, I'll really be ok with it. Same with facebook. If you're not digging what I'm putting out there, unfriend me; or at least hide me from your feed. We can still be real friends even if we're not facebook "friends".

But how do you talk to people who are friends with you on facebook without starting every sentence with, "Did you see what I posted on facebook?" It's even worse now that I have a blog. I say way too often: "Did you read my blog post about x?" 

What I'm saying is this:

You just said something that reminded me of something cute my kid did. But I've already blogged about it. So if you read that post already, I'm not gonna' tell you the story again. So I just want to know if you've already heard this story before I tell it to you again.

But here's what I think it sounds like:

Dude. I am so awesome that I have a blog that's totally about every random and awesome thought that pops into my head. My blog is so awesome. And you should totally be reading it. Every post. It's all about me, you know? So are you reading it? Because you totally should be.

So if I am ever out with you for dinner or we're talking over a nice bottle of Cabernet and I ask you, "Did you see my blog post about x?" Please know that my feelings of self-worth are not tied to your answer. I just want to know if I should tell you the personal anecdote that just popped into my head and happens to be something I've already blogged about.

Cool?

Cool.

facebook privacy backdoor

I was just taking a look at my facebook privacy settings.  I was actually trying to fix a bug that won't let me upload photos from my iPhone 4, but I stumbled across a group of settings that I was rather annoyed at. So I'm sharing them here in case anyone else wants to turn these off. You may all know about this one already, but I didn't, so I'm sharing.

Here was the screen I eventually found that was troubling:

Based on what it says here, I'm going to assume that if one of my facebook friends grants access to an application, game, or website, then that application will also have access to everything I have checked here that I also share with my facebook friends. The screen you see above is what was checked by default; I have never modified these settings. Personally, I choose to opt out of the "more social experience."

Anyway, if you want to find this screen, too, here's how you find it.  In the top right hand corner of your facebook page, click on Account > Privacy Settings.

You will see this screen:

Click on Edit your settings from the Apps and Websites section. On the next screen, click on Edit Settings next to Info accessible through your friends.

You will then see the screen from before:

Select or deselect whichever options you're comfortable with. Hope this helps.