I’ve blogged before about how difficult I find it sometimes to keep up with everything.
I blog, I tweet, I post – there are so many social media platforms it’s overwhelming.
Zed and I had a conversation the other day about how she felt SL was slowly moving out of SL.
Back in the good ‘ol days, when a shop came out with a new item, you would get a group notice and a LM or pic attached.
These days, you get a notice from their subscribo or group. Said notice tells you to go see the item on their Flickr page or their Facebook page.
In addition to notices, people plurk, tweet, and tumblr all over the place.
And since, as Zed pointed out, SL is essentially a fancy chat room, is it becoming unnecessary?
I’ve always had my offline IM’s set to go to my email, so I didn’t miss anything if messages got capped.
Although I resisted for some time, I now have that email accessible on my phone.
I have enough going on at various times that it became more convenient to be able to reply to people as soon as possible.
However, I find that my phone now goes off waaaaayyy too often.
If people come to SL looking for connections, is it unrealistic to think that once those connections are established, then they move outside of SL into RL?
How much of your SL bleeds over into your RL?
Do you keep the two strictly separate?
If so, how?
A Kat and A Mouse 
I keep it strictly limited to FB only because one of the troupes I dance with uses it to communicate, this blog, and Dance Queens blog. I refuse to allow it to go further, it is just too time-consuming and I need my RL time. I do get offlines in my email and check that regularly, often reply from my email instead of logging in. We were using Skype but that became too invasive so we try to avoid that now.
I’ve never been a big Skype user, probably because I used to have crappy internet and I couldn’t Skype and run SL at the same time, lol.
I have Twitter and email on my phone, but sometimes I have to remind myself to check them. I think social media platforms in general are black holes for time. You hop on the computer to answer a few emails and two hours of cat videos later . . . 😀
I love love love LOVE this post. I do not keep the two separate. I am the same person in both lives and I don’t RP much on sl. I too have an SL FB, Email, Twitter and Plurk (I don’t really use twitter or plurk much) but I also get my offlines to emai. I had to filter my emails though cause honestly, I don’t care about the group notices. When I log in, I check all my group notices (I have many of them turned off anyway) but when it comes to my blog, I spend more time on fb and flickr promoting it than I do writing the post sometimes! I do get annoyed when I’m told to go to a flickr or fb page to see something in world, cause sometimes flickr is a bitch. I think designers should spend the 10L to upload the texture and put it in the notice AND in the box the item comes in.
I get a lot of group notices too, but it didn’t occur to me to filter them. Doh! I don’t have Flickr, but I spend time on other platforms promoting as well. It’s hard work to be heard among the millions of bloggers! 😀
GET FLICKR!!!!
I would, but you have to give them a phone number. I don’t have one I’m willing to part with, since I know too many people who’ve had their Yahoo accounts hacked. 😦
hmmm the phone number is supposed to be protection.
Yes, it is. It doesn’t always work, though. And having been through two hacks already, I’m not willing to go through another one. 😦
Online games have always been in my RL. In the 90’s/early 2000’s I would go drinkin with mates, get home, then have a late night bash with them on Phantasy Star Online. I met Guildwars Guildies in a couple of RL meet ups, and I try to keep in contact with ex Mooners via email and twatter.
All that said, I can still up and leave all online stuff when the need arises (such as this week). So I am not so badly plugged in I cannot leave.
I think sometimes people need breaks as well. I took a hiatus this summer for several months, as RL was just too hectic to allow much time for SL. My children, however, would have withdrawal if they didn’t have some kind of internet access and/or smartphones. 😛