Last week, Google’s newest venture, Google Buzz, went live for just about all Gmail users. This lovechild of FriendFeed, Twitter, and AIM gives users the ability to start an open chat with any email contact, and include photos, and links. It also incorporates your GChat status updates and away messages as “buzzes,” and posts all of the above to your very public Google profile.
Immediately, the masses began critiquing this new tool, particularly since its release lied so close on the heels of Google Wave, the last misunderstood, under-utilized venture from the search giant. After all, isn’t Buzz just expanded GChat? And who wants all of this information on their public profiles? And why wouldn’t you just email the person instead? And honestly, there are some people you just want to email and not chat with. All very valid points. But is all the Google Buzz criticism really about technical capabilities and privacy, or is it more about social backlash?
Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, YouTube, Vimeo, UStream, Google, LinkedIn… throughout the day there are endless possibilities for one of your friends to interrupt all of your strategizing mojo with a video clip of cats playing poker. And that Aunt whose calls you’ve been avoiding? If you’ve ever sent her an email in your life, she can now find you and buzz you. Comments you make on Twitter, even in the deluded privacy of a reply, show up as a search result. And even if you try to keep a low profile, Google will shout your email address from the rooftops so that anyone with even brief search skills can find a way to contact you.
And whether or not you’re sharing information, everyone in your circle is sharing it to you -- or actually, “at” you. Why?
Recently, the New York Times published an article debating the reasons why we feel the need to share so much information on the web. Author John Tierney tells us that people enjoy sharing “awe” inducing stories for two basic reasons: ” I give you something of practical value in the hope that you’ll someday return the favor.” And “I get to show off how well informed I am by sending news that will shock you.” But above this reasoning, Dr. Jonah Berger of Penn’s Wharton School tells Tuerney that there’s another need to share hysterical, crazy, frightening information. The people who share this with you are “seeking emotional communion.”
So, if you’ve had enough of random links ending up every way you turn, yet are ready to embrace the emotional communion, try these four ways to reduce the noise in your life:
- Keep track of all your social profiles and go ahead and take the plunge: delete the ones you never use. If you’ve got a reputation to maintain, there’s no need to clutter it by keeping around profiles you haven’t updated in years.
- Maintain your privacy settings. Have you checked out Facebook’s edit options? You can control how many friends updates you see, and unless you want to, you never have to look at another Farmville score again. If you’re on Buzz, make sure you’re aware that all your GChat status updates will be posted as a Buzz, making for more communication fodder. Also, all Buzzes show up on your live Google profile. You can change both of these options by clicking the “Connected Sites” link and unconnecting everything you’ve got.
- Take a day off. Every week, try to do something drastic: turn your phone off for a day (gasp. I know, I know. But let’s be realistic, if you’ve got a day off, you should be celebrating the fresh air and sunshine, or catching up on sleep). And a funny thing happens when you take a digital break and come back -- all those messages are still there waiting for you!
- Meet your friends and family. Instead of carrying on real relationships over the WWW, try moving the WWW into the real space. Pick up the phone when you receive an email, or walk over to a desk if you can. Plan to have family members over to share photo albums instead of posting them to a Facebook wall. Say hello to friends visiting the same establishment as you instead of greeting their Foursquare check-in with badge brags. In order to keep your relationships solid, it’s important to spend a little IRL quality time and really get to know people in more than 140 characters.
