Surviving Social Media

According to Fox News (yeah, I know--quit laughing and keep reading), the human brain can only handle 150 Facebook friends.

Well, actually this is the opinion of Robin Dunbar, a professor of evolutionary anthropology at Oxford University. Dunbar conducted research showing that even though social networking sites let us maintain more relationships, the number of meaningful friendships we can sustain is the same as it's always been.

I thought about this when I saw this post called "I Can't Stand Social Media Either" on Anne Wayman's blog, About Freelance Writing.

I will definitely have to check out those links she mentioned. Because I swear, if you try to do everything, you risk doing nothing but social media. Which is fine, if you want to become a social media consultant, but if you have other work to do, it can be problematic.

Of course, writers have always needed to balance marketing time with actual work time. That hasn't changed, but the nature of our marketing has.

Plus, if you think about it, how much time do you spend on Twitter or Facebook versus email? I don't know about you, but my email still takes more time than just about anything.

I guess the bottom line is this. You can only do what you can do. Use the social media that seem to work best for you. Everyone will have a different notion of what that is. Don't let the choices overwhelm you. Just try things out and see how it goes.

And don't forget--you are entitled to a real life. :)