The Futility of Comparing Yourself to Other is you’re comparing your reality to an ideal, a fantasy.
Social Media and the endless Sharing Culture built around it puts us in competition with our peers, friends, family and strangers constantly.
I don’t want to compare. I don’t want to share. I don’t want to compete. Social features are turn offs to me. I don’t want to post anything to anywhere. If I want to make a post about it, I will take it upon myself to do that, and perhaps link to a public page or screenshot.
But I don’t want to tell everyone about everything I do all the time.
I use Goodreads not to share what I read but simply to track books. I use the recommendations sometimes but I ignore the rest of the site. I use it mostly from my iPhone and I update my progress through the book(s) I am reading.
I have friends there. But I don’t follow them. I don’t care what they’re reading. That’s not why I use the site. If I could turn off the Social I would.
I love Pinboard. It bills itself Social Bookmarking for Introverts and is true to its word. I can follow other people so I can see their public bookmarks. I don’t. That’s all the Social there is to it.
The best thing about Pinboard is it allows me to send information to it.
- Articles I’ve saved for later.
- Favorited posts on Tumblr, Twitter, Google Reader.
- Anything I’ve forwarded to it from email.
It’s my central repository for all online knowledge. If I’ve come across it, it’s in Pinboard and that’s where I search for it. I don’t share it. I don’t tell everyone about it. I don’t share it with my friends. I keep it for me.
I don’t have a constant need to share. I don’t need to tell my friends what I’m doing at all times of the day and night. More often, the sites I use and communities I spend time in may be tracking data for me and me alone and if others see it, that’s ok too.
I’m not in it for the social. I am in it for the benefit it brings to my life.
