If You Don't Know Me. Don't Add Me!

Facebook and MySpace. Yes they get another mention in blogville today. I check my Facebook online and some random dude from Guyana wants to be my friend. He is friends with somebody I went to school with and must have woken up from his perch and decided to add me when he saw my name commenting on her status.

MySpace is fine now once the settings are tweaked but oh my goodness just random folks trying to befriend me were horrendous on a daily basis. WHAT.IS.THE.POINT of having 3,548 friends on any of these social networks and you only know 12 in real life. I added over a hundred from my forum I'm a regular on but have since deleted those as I don't really know them and I was getting no benefit from having them on my profile and keeping up with what was going on in their lives. And to be honest I really didn't care. So I had a MySpace spring clean one day and fixed up my profile and got rid of everyone I didn't know. I now have less than 30 friends on MySpace and a fair few consist of music artists I'm fans of or are interested in. I'm cool with having 28 on MySpace. On Facebook I have just over a hundred but they are legitimate people I have met in real life or know. That's my rule. There is only 1 person I can say on there I have never met but she's on both social networking site accounts of mine and that's an Internet buddy, we go way back from 98, we've spoken on the phone plenty of times she's sent me pictures of her and her hubby and kids so she can count as a worthy friend [and I promise myself next time I'm in New York we will meet up].

The others consist of family, close friends, old college and school friends, people I've met on my travels…you catch my drift.

So put it this way, if we've never spoken or shaken hands you will never grace being associated with me on a SNS. I'll never understand those that randomly hunt down women to add and even more so I'll never understand the fools that add these fools like they've been singled out as special women who may have a chance. Peep their page and you'll see woman after woman gracing it. You're nothing special just another [keyboard] 'hit and add' and on they go to the next woman to snag for www pleasures. It's like the online equivalent of one night stands and the number of friends and female profile pics equates to notches on bedposts for his boys to see like some online trophy.

Social networking sites are what you make of them. Keep your stuff private for only those you know and you're good. Keep it open and expect trash to come your way causing trouble or leaving messages of things that they want to do to you. I love both sites for different reasons. Getting back in touch with long lost school friends and seeing what everyone is up to and just having all of that in one place is brilliant. When you now wonder about the long lost friend from 13 years ago it's as simple as picking up your phone logging on and sending them a message via a downloaded Facebook application to say hello. And to think if I or anybody else wanted to organise a reunion it certainly wouldn't be that difficult, a few clicks and send a message to all.

I'm tired of the celebrity egos from some people who think their profile picture on the Internet gives them some kind of 23rd rate celeb status. Making announcements about coming off of Facebook because of comments **SIGH** is it really that serious? So 1 person is going to run you off for not keeping in contact with 200 people. Smelling yourself a bit aren't you?

*Switch your settings so nobody can leave a comment on your picture.
*If a friend tags you remove the tag, that will stop somebody else who is their friend commenting on your picture.
*If someone in your circle says something hateful, delete them as a friend.

I mean is it me or is that just not plain common sense than deleting your account? **Rolls eyes**

Technology Is Ruining My Life

"Hello my name is LondonDiva and I am an addict"

I am a junkie and there is no support group for people like me. I'm sure there are some people on the www (aka the Super Internet Highway) who are more obsessed than me, but I can't help it, I just can't. If my computer is switched off then it's my Blackberry that comes with me everywhere I go. I'm constantly checking my Facebook to see the status of all my Facebook pals and update mine a few times throughout the day, or to send and reply to messages and wall posts.

I found the level of my addiction reach an all time high when I found myself actually pissed off that MySpace doesn't have an application for mobile phones and Blackerry's. WTF is that all about. The Internet features on phones are too slow and you'd think the biggest online community in the world would have stepped up to the plate by now and added one. I NEED A MYSPACE APPLICATION FOR MY BLACKBERRY AND I WANT IT NOW.!

It started this past weekend. I had a relapse. I've had a MySpace page for coming on 2 years now and had over a 100 'friends' on there. 90% of those people I didn't know or had never met personally, and a majority of them came from the forum I've been a member of for 6 years. Like my Facebook rule, which I actually reserve for people I know, old school or college chums, have met in person, or are family members, I decided I was going to apply the same rule to my MySpace account and get rid of over 100 'friends', of whom I had no interest in nor cared about their updates or what they had to say on their blogs. What their marital status was, or even browse through their pictures where it seems 99% of the female MySpace population seem to pose ass first.

I had a clean up and it felt good, like a technological rebirth. I added a few applications, deleted some comments from non friend contacts, added some new pictures and sent a few messages and hellos and genuine ones at that. I had actually spent most of my Sunday on MySpace, and now everything I should have done on Sunday has now spilled into Tuesday.

I've reached the end, and I need to get a grip and join a 12 step program. It's gotten to the point where:

• 
  I'm writing my blog entry when I should actually be working. I have work to do yet making sure my life online is documented is paramount.
• 
  I had a can of Pepsi and scrambled eggs for dinner last night.
• 
  I have not done the grocery shopping that should have been done on Friday (it's now Tuesday) because shopping takes up time that could be better spent on the PC at home.
• 
  I'm a DVD addict, but it's taken me 4 days to start and finish watching Heat. This addiction has been surpassed by the DVD addiction.
• 
  I take my Blackberry with me to the bathroom at home. The kitchen, living room and 2 feet away from me at night in the bedroom.
• 
  The letters in my In-Tray at home should have been filed away. They are piling up.
• 
  I have not put away the laundry from last week's wash.
• 
  I went to bed at 3:30am on Monday morning and even in bed was still logging in online on my Blackberry from underneath the sheets.
• 
  I check my e-mails before I even get up out of the bed.
• 
  The 2 dresses I posted in the "I'm Officially IN the Closet" post came yesterday and I haven't even tried them on.
• 
  I haven't sent back the 'faulty' handbag to ASOS yet.
• 
  I've been sending my expense timesheet off on Tuesdays instead of preparing them over the weekend and posting them on Monday morning.
• 
  My Blackberry red light is flashing so that means I have an e-mail, text, IM or Facebook notification, and I'm dying to press the button…I did it was a text from a recruitment agency wanting Accountants. **Yawn**
• 
  I check my Blackberry countless times at my desk just by pressing any button to see if there's something there waiting for me to read. Even though the red light tells me this.

It's official. I am sick. I need to get back to the more organised me. The me that knows the importance of enough sleep, a balanced diet and a tidy home.
Maybe the fact that I've acknowledged my addiction I can somehow take the steps to getting myself clean again. Getting clean is not the problem it's remaining sober, because I'm one online community and application away from over dosing. And once I'm gone I many never come back

(This is not meant as a diagnosis tool!) - great that makes me feel a whole lot better.

Are you addicted to the Internet quiz I scored 30

Internet addiction likely
Based upon your responses to this quiz, it appears that the amount of time you're spending online may be causing you significant concerns within your real-world life. People who spend a lot of time online often find that they have difficulty balancing their Internet life with their real-world life (especially if you are new to the Internet). You should look at how you're using the Internet right now and see if there are ways that you can reduce or otherwise change your use of the Internet to reduce the issues it may be causing in your life. Think of it like this... You generally don't spend 6 or 8 hours in front of the television, every night, nearly every day. Most people wouldn't think that's normal. So if you find yourself spending that amount of time online day after day and it's affecting your ability to interact in your real life, you should seek change or additional help.

How sad am I? On a scale of 1-10 probably a 30.