I guess as a Gemini, I like it. Saves me the time of having to tell everybody my life updates, which are many and fleeting. Plus, it makes me feel like a celebrity I’m not sure if they’re getting to understand the real me, but whatever! What I project online is probably way cooler, LOL.

When we first got internet, it was 1999. I got involved in online business, and a message board that was for online business owners. Several friendships started there that last to this day – two women in particular I am still very close to beyond online. (Altho the hearing loss makes those phone conversations a bit of a bitch! Thankful for web captioning being available now!) a few others I correspond with via email from time to time.

By 2001, my marriage was falling apart, I was isolated and depressed and didn’t really want to do the “face to face” thing with anyone other than when I was at work because that was the only time I felt like a “normal” person. I’d run into people in town and put on the work face for them, then come home and put on my facade online.

I started to blog. Cleared a few demons out of my head that had been hanging around a looonngg time. Continued to struggle with my marriage.

I stopped blogging everyday about two ago. No time anymore, and not a lot to say I guess. Now it’s hard for me to find time to *write*, so while I resisted being assimilated into Facebook, I finally gave in several months ago. I like it, but I miss the soul searching that went on via the blog that was locked down to the point I knew everyone on there.

To a large extent, I live behind a facade online and off. This is almost the only online place I come close to who I really am, mostly because I have a lot of friends who are very religious – one is a pastor! – and they wouldn’t quite know what to make of who I am.

And I’m okay with that. Social media opens up TMI for a lot of people, and I don’t really think they need to know everything. But what it did for me was open a door that there are other people who have beliefs the same as my own, and allow me to see other sides of things that I may not have encountered otherwise.

It’s a double edged sword, though. No doubt about that.

I’ve been active online, off and on, since ’96 and have formed quite a few friendships this way. It’s “natural” to me.
At the same time, I’m very aware of my facade and take care with crafting it much like I do in face-to-face interactions. (After all, interaction is a facade no matter what. I’m about as real a person as you’re likely to meet, and I’m still aware that you’re not seeing the “real me,” but the me in your head. I’m not above manipulating that when it suits me, even though I complain about it incessantly.)

It’s all levels, I think. I have one mask for “public consumption” (walking down the street), another mask for public interaction (work, waitstaff, etc), a mask for acquaintance, a mask for inner circle, a mask for family… Masks upon masks upon masks. :/ They’re all facets of me and completely authentic, but they’re still masks. Am I making any sense?

I use most social media, especially Facebook, like I would talk to an acquaintance: revealing little, light and interesting conversation. We’re at a party, man, not a therapist’s. On Xanga and especially here I’m more comfortable exposing some of my darker side and inner turmoil, so those places are elevated to “trusted friend” status.

I’m totes guilty of assuming everyone else does the same. I never expect I’m seeing the full monty until and unless time bears this out.

Being as I am married to a Technology wizard social media is a part of every day life that is all inclusive, telephone, Internet, television, video, you name it we usually got it. Plus he can usually make all the technology do what ever he wants it to do. May take a bit but in the end he wins.

What this means for me and the real world is that I can make contact with most anyone. Connecting with a hologram is cool because you sometimes don’t want other persons to know you not really know you. When you meet face to face that is really personal and they now have a way to get to know the real you. That is not only uncomfortable to some degree but can be very dangerous. That being said I have reconnected with several of my friends from my high school days and re-established friendships from that time. Although we do not connect as often was we would like we do maintain a connection. In fact I have reconnected with one of my best friends from high school through IM. We stay in touch through our computers, telephone, and when ever we can get away and go back to where I grew up we are as thick as we were in high school or ever closer. I have a friend who lives in Houston she is another high school buddy the three of us are very close again but we had lost contact for over 20+ years when we reconnected. I would say that thanks to social media I have regained some of my closest friends and re-established friendships with some of my other friendly acquaintances from my high school days pretty cool if you ask me.

I would never have be come acquainted with your hologram which in my opinion would have been a sad thing. I enjoy your site very much even if it is just a job for you. Your insights on the up coming transits make me stop and think about my day and plan accordingly. They also make me look at my own astrological aspects and how the transits are effecting my and my husband very helpful. You do your job very well thanks.

My life is better because of the social media and interacting here on the blog.

I think our brains create the holograms in an attempt to relate as best as possible with the given information. No one is seeing me whether you are talking about facebook or here on the blog.

I’m always shocked when I meet someone that I have emailed and talked to on the phone for years through work…they are nothing like I thought! LOL

I love blogging and despise social media. Hate it, hate it, hate it. I hate how Facebook is a social requirement and I try to avoid it as much as possible, and I’ve never once updated. I’d delete my account except that socially you can never do it, Just In Case. I love online communication, but I want long stints of writing, not 140 characters.

I have to say that I’ve never gotten this “hologram” thing though. Unless you are deliberately trying to not act like yourself, how is it “fake?” But then again, what you get IRL with me is the same as online, really. Well, whinier, but otherwise, same personality and I couldn’t fake being otherwise.

social media is great for helping get the word out of my work and connecting with ppl similar to myself. However with that said, Facebook while in the beginning I thought was great has turned out to be a tool in which haunts me. I have 2 past relationships/friends that are on my Facebook whom I have reconnected with, now this in the beginning was fun, but then it now brought out all of my insecurities again. I kept asking myself why did these 2 men not choose me, when they say they clearly have regrets, and then I torture myself over and over again. Logically I know this is stupid and if it was meant to be it would have worked out years ago, but because I feel my marriage is at a point where I would probably like to get out, I go through this horrific mind game of trying to figure out what and why I would pick such bad choices.. naturally by now I know why and realize that in my 20′s if I had therapy earlier I would have made better choices, but the constant reminder by looking at FB and their lives just is brutal.. I guess I just need a FB detox.

Elsa..your comment about “wouldn’t be caught dead at an astrology conference” intriques me. that’s crazy interesting

I think social media is fascinating. It appears as if many people hide their real selves though, even in real life…

I am what I am, or what you see is what you get. I think I have a 70s mindset in that “everything was groovy man” type attitude. It’s hard to believe that people can’t be their real selves when expressing themselves on a blog.

We talk about the weather when at the grocery store, I do that on twitter ^_^, it’s just who I am, I find the weather beautiful and interesting. Astrology is a major interest and it’s great that there are so many places online to discuss it. I remember when it was hard to find any astrology information other than the weekly or daily newspaper.

I think where I draw the line online is trying to not divulge too much personal information, sure you can get personal, but you certainly would like to choose who you share that information with, not just everyone and anyone.

That being said, social media is fantastic! I marvel at meeting people from around the world! When I was in college, I thought it was grand meeting people from other countries, now I get to talk to them in their own countries! That is the best thing about the Internet, it brings people together and makes the world a smaller place.

Thanks ^_^

Melody – long story but the short version is, I’d rather stay home.

it’s pushed the issue about everything being connected. if i connect what i do for work with what i do at home with what i do here with family with friends…well, someplace, it’s going to create friction. i had to make a lot of decisions about what is worthy to suffer the friction vs. what i’d be best off keeping my big mouth shut about.

the mouth wins a lot of the time. it’s easier than trying to keep track.

Well, my mother will read the horoscope in the f*ing NEWSPAPER so the she feels ‘connected’ to me. Geesh.

sea i used to write and receive long letters, too. now i just write them… and wonder what is happening on the other end.

Oh! Trailed off… Sorry to hear that Ben has taken to feeling satisfied by your hologram for the moment. ::hugs::

Everyone has made such interesting points. I work in publishing and use social media but it’s something I barely tolerate. My company has a Facebook page, blog and twitter account–but I do not. I hate Facebook. It’s an invasion of everyone’s privacy and has turned people into narcissists constantly braying about their lives. I’m seriously contemplating removing my company’s Facebook page because it’s more trouble than it’s worth and I can’t justify paying a part-time staff member to write status updates–especially when most of the resulting comments are from authors, wannabe writers and others using my company wall to promote their own agendas. This drives me crazy. And I’m also experiencing the same thing as Sea. People think that by commenting on our Facebook or company blog, they’re communicating with me (even though I tell them I rarely read the posts) so the personal emails have slowly dwindled over the past year since being on Facebook. Does anyone else see Facebook disappearing at some point? I truly believe “privacy” will be the next hot commodity. My personal planets in Gemini are squared by Mars, Pluto in Virgo in the 12th. Saturn in Aquarius in 5th house demands that my work communications be serious even though I work in a creative field.