Blog #23

Yes, I know I haven't done 23 blogs, but I have reached the end of the 23 things project, so the title is symbolic of that.

I must say that this project has opened my eyes to the possibilties of the World Wide Web. There were many online apps that I had never even heard of before, like Rollyo and LibraryThing. And other I had heard of, but didn't really understand, like Flickr and RSS feeds. My favorites are the feeds and the generator programs (especially the ones at Seventh Sanctum). The number ways to utilize these apps may truly be endless and I will continue to explore them as time allows.

There is, however, at least one website that I plan never to use: Twitter. This just strikes me as the dumbest idea ever. Why would I want to know, or even care about, what a complete stranger is doing at any given time? For that matter, why would I want to let others what I am doing? I want to keep my private life private. That's partly why I've been resistant to the online world for a while, the more we let in the online community into our lives, the more of ourselves we give back.

I also feel that the sheer amount of information on the Internet is itself overwhelming. Being inundated by so much information can make it hard to know what to think about things or to determine which sources are the most reliable. I guess I just don't want to become one of those people that are plugged in 24/7 and don't take the time to do anything else.

But, as I've said before, if this is the direction our world is going in, there's no sense in crying about it. We can embrace the cyber age if we learn to use these tools wisely, and not let them use us!