Social Network Overdose

When I was leaving for France, I was obsessed with making sure that people in the States were able to reach me. After a 7 month hiatus, I reactivated my account on Facebook. I also made sporadic connections to Tumblr and Twitter, and decided to reactivate this blog. I combed through archives and posts to figure out how to forward calls to an international number. The possibilities were endless, it seemed. It was almost too easy to stay in contact.

This was a massive juxtaposition to when I first went to France in 2006. Hunter College wasn't even part of Facebook yet (remember when we had to petition for schools to be a part? Ah, the good ole elitist days…) Several friends did a study abroad program that semester too, and so we relied on a listserv type communication to periodically send each other updates. It ended up working out pretty well, but there were days when I felt so disconnected to the world. I didn't have a TV, and YouTube, in its infancy then, never held much appeal. It would take days to download Grey's Anatomy and the L Word, but worth it to have the few moments of connection to something that wasn't French, and lives that weren't my own. When my two closest friends and I ended up getting boyfriends around the same time, but I didn't like mine, I went into a serious funk. I wanted to be around or feel connected to someone, but I was in the middle (well, the "top" in the 18th arrondissement) of Paris and who was I to complain? The moment passed, but I knew that the next time I would be here long-term, I needed to be prepared.

My first week here, I sent out an email with no less than 6 different ways to communicate with me, not even including email. When I looked at the list, it seemed ridiculous that I had even amassed all these forms in the first place. Social networks have become so normalized, at least in my world, that I didn't even realize the collective effect of all this connectivity. But as any good parent would say, it's the quality, not the quantity, that matters. With all the Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Skype, and Gchat I amassed, in the end, I almost end up feeling even more lonely, because I can witness other people's connections but lack my own. I spent most of my day yesterday in silence, away from the keyboard, fighting with myself to be grateful for where I was (in Paris, for goodness sake) and not to feel the first stirrings of loneliness.

As it goes with the best personal revelations--you are always the last person to know something that is painfully obvious to everyone else--I am coming to terms with how social of a creature I am. I wanted to pride myself on being able to balance personal time with social time, but I dreadfully tip on needing social time. I can easily spend my mornings and afternoons by myself, but by the evening, I am salivating for company. I connect to the social network triumvirate, with Skype tossed in for good measure, but it feels subpar to actual conversation with people who actually know me. The time difference adds another complication: there is sometimes nothing more depressing than seeing an empty "buddy list" (what is the non-AOL name for that?) when you really want to talk to someone.

So three cheers for the connected world we live in, where it is possible to be thousands of miles away and still be able to communicate with one click. As with any decent double-edged sword, however, connectivity is only as good as the people you are able to connect with, and sadly, sometimes even that proves not enough.