Hands up who remembers Friends Reunited?

Hands up who remembers Friends Reunited? It all seems such a long time ago, my children were tiny and we had a dial up connection for our shared family computer, housed in a cubby hole under the stairs.

I can hear the squeaks and beeps, with the sound of Tellytubbies on in the background. Meanwhile I furtively looked up old friends and acquaintances to compare notes.

I may never have had a brilliant career but now I had my own little family, and for the girl who never had a proper boyfriend until she was twenty-four I had finally “made it”. How had everyone else fared I wondered?

Of course, Friends Reunited was only the first of many, Facebook superseded it and many other social media platforms have come and gone in the intervening years.

I have always been a big fan of Facebook. Andrew and I joined when our eldest was still twelve to get ahead of the game before he turned thirteen and was officially allowed to have his own account – we were strict parents.

One of my favourite tasks each day is to catch up with Facebook memories, the online photo diary of yesteryear.

I joined Twitter when I started writing, came off it a few years later but decided to start a new account a couple of years ago – my old Twitter handle still existed, it was almost as if I’d never been away – only much has changed including number of characters you could use in one tweet – it had doubled - that’s inflation I suppose!

Meanwhile Instagram is still all new to me and I will confess I don’t really get it – how am I supposed to share stories? How do I share a blog post? What’s with all the #######?

But apparently it is essential for a writer’s profile, all that promotion potential, if you know how to work the system. I’m certainly followed by plenty of people – lots on new men every day – Johnny Depp and Keanu Reeves – oh I don’t think so matey – Block! Block! Block!

This is all stopping me from writing in the first place.

And now Twitter is collapsing into a black hole – although its demise seems to be in slow motion, much talked about but is anything happening or is it just hype?

Only a few months ago people were jumping ship to Mastodon – I never bothered. But now there is Threads – should I click the magic button and add another social media platform to my growing portfolio – it’s all in aid of promoting my book which is in the stages of being published, so I need a space to shout into cyberspace – buy my book!!!!!! Is anybody listening?????

To be honest I’m getting a bit tired of it all, should I give it all up or just take a break for a month or two.

A nagging voice tells me I would lose traction, lose followers, fall foul of the algorithms, and disappear into my own black hole.

Then again it might be nice and quiet there, I might get the chance to think, to actually write something!

What really excites me about releasing my book into the wild is meeting real people. I dream of talking to church groups, WI’s or anyone that would like me to speak – if I sell a book or two what a bonus. It’s all a bit of a daydream but I’m going to try and make it happen.

I don’t need to make this work for financial gains, in many ways I am lucky I lost my husband and I can live off his pension. It also gave me something to write about – oh the irony. Black humour has seen me through a lot of dark days.

But, back to the subject of social media, do I join Threads to be sociable, or just wait and see?????

I’m sure it will be filled with the same people I already follow and the same photos they have shared elsewhere will pop up again – same old same old – In the good old days’ procrastination used to be much more fun without the FOMO.

Meanwhile, I’ve caught up with most of my old school friends now, marriages, divorces, children and careers, most of my friends don’t share as much as they used to. There are only a few of us on Facebook still over sharing - Wordle scores, sunrises, vicariously sharing our children’s successes, because our children have long since abandoned Facebook. I have one son who only uses Twitter for work and one who doesn’t see the point of any of it.

Perhaps it’s not just Twitter that’s dying maybe we are waking up to the fact that “social media” is not terribly sociable after all.

Although I am a hypocrite because I shall still be sharing a link to this blog on Facebook and Twitter 

because how else will you find me!!!!