Saturday, January 26, 2008

Do I Really Need All These Things?

It's that time of the year when subscription renewals fall due. My flickr account has lapsed from a "Pro" to a standard account. (It always felt a bit odd having that "Pro" tag because my photo's are nowhere near what I would regard as professional). It's not expensive, but I kinda think so what? Do I need it at all? I've given Facebook the heave-ho (or at least "deactivated" my account, because you can't delete it. Wish I'd known that when I signed up), and I can't say I've noticed any difference. There hasn't been a stream of emails from people saying they miss me.

Flickr is different however, because I do enjoy photography. I don't take anywhere near as many pictures as I feel I should or would like to, it doesn't however increase the number of photo's I take and the level of feedback I get is minimal so there is little interaction there with anyone else. So do I really need it? Well I don't know. For the time being I'm going to leave it as it is. (My GF is still off sick from work, and has reached the point where her sick pay runs out so every penny saved is a good thing). I'll see whether I miss being a "PRO".

There are many other places where I wonder if my "presence" would be missed. I'm a member of a couple of on-line book discussion groups. One for mystery books, and another for travel books. I post occasionally, but mostly I "lurk", so I'm not sure whether or not to keep them going. There are only so many emails that you can read after all. The same with bookcrossing, I started out with the best of intentions, but I haven't released a book in months, partly because of some the fellow bookcrossers I met at a local meet who were, shall we say a little clique all to themselves and didn't really appreciate a stranger affecting their group dynamic.

Then of course there's blogging. Here I stay for now. I don't post nearly as much as I would like to but I do enjoy it. I doubt if I gave up all of the things above I would have anymore time online to blog. I don't think time is really the issue here, it's more a case of am I wasting other peoples time. So for now things stay as they are, no subscriptions renewed for online stuff, at least for the time being at least, we'll see whether I miss any of it or not.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You're not wasting my time :^)

I enjoy reading your blog.

Anonymous said...

Same for me. I would miss you if you didn't blog - I also had a flickr pro account. It was a present and I never renewed it. I don't miss it.

So don't stop blogging. Even if it isn't as often as you feel you should do it. I still miss some people who have stopped and, worse, there's no way to let them know because they are gone.

So. Not a waste of anyone's time. That's safe to say.