Social media lets me down (Thing 11)

I got all set up for Digg. I’ve seen Digg icons at the bottoms of individual blog posts, and I wondered what it meant. Hmm, social bookmarking that ranks interest. I don’t care. Sorry, just don’t care. (I did Digg a couple of articles on sugar-based soda that were replacing corn syrup sweetened soft drinks. I love cane soda.)

I think it might be Digg that’s the problem for me, though. I couldn’t Digg sites on my favorite online home, the New York Times. NY Times had options to e-mail items of interest, which I’ve used often, but there was no option to Digg.

OK, try another. Just the name “Newsvine” looks promising. OK, Newsvine is my thing. I’m clicking and linking and reading and learning—and loving it. I guess I just needed to find my genre.

Net result, however: timesuck. This is the sort of tool that draws you into a web of links you’ll like to read because someone like you liked to read them too. Click. Click. Click. Wait, how long have I been on Newsvine?

This is the first Thing I’ve found that I can’t see used in libraries except by people like me who have time on their hands during Saturday reference desk hours. I give this Thing my first thumbs down. Sorry social media (but I’ll be back for Newsvine’s links to The Times of London).