Reducing My Cyber Footprint

Well, it's the beginning of February, and I have already accomplished one of my New Year's Resolutions: I have reduced my cyber footprint.

That's the buzz-phrase now, isn't it? The über-pious Greenies implore us to reduce our carbon footprint, so I'm holding my breath as much as possible. My favorite sign that I've seen from a Tea Party demonstration was the one that read: Reduce your government footprint. Amen! I wanted in on the trend. So, I decided in 2009 that I was going to reduce my cyber footprint in 2010. And I have. Significantly.

The first thing I did was cancel my MySpace page. I hadn't logged in since 2007, so that was a no-brainer. The second thing was to deactivate my Facebook page. This was a little more tricky, since I did not want suddenly to disappear from my friends' Friends Lists and then have that awkward discussion of "Why did you 'unfriend' me?" So, I put out a warning the night before that "it's not you; it's me" and cancelled the next day. Hallelujah! I hated Facebook with purple passion. Mostly because I felt pressured to be friends with people about whose day-to-day thoughts and activities I really do not care -- e.g. cousins by marriage. Also, Facebook would not let me join Carolyn Arends's Fan Page, so what good is it, anyway? Buh-bye, Facebook!

Thought long and hard about quitting Twitter, too. If anything, Twitter is the most obnoxious method of self-aggrandizement of them all; however, I really like quickly catching up with the people I follow and having immediate links to their own posts or webpages they find interesting. I tried to add individual Twitter accounts to my browser's "favorites," but that is too messy. In the end, I decided just never to post there again and encourage people to "unfollow" me. Hopefully, that will work.

The biggest plus of all this reducing is that Jason now has fewer things to tease me about. And, as I am a highly dorky and teasable person, that is a benefit, indeed!