To Facebook or Not to Facebook?

I am really starting to hate this social networking fad that is going on over at “The Internet”.  That’s what Daryl & I have started calling it, btw.  You see, by default, I not a very social person.  I have a handful of friends that I’m really bad about keeping in contact with.  Then there are all the other people that I know – how am I suppose to keep in contact with them?  That’s essentially what MySpace & Facebook represent to me . . . A list of people that I should talk to and message, and comment on their cute kids, and make the “Oh, I’ve been that drunk. . .” comment on their pictures.

And that’s just not me.  Don’t get me wrong, I can do it, it just doesn’t seem natural.  So anyway, I’ve been forcing myself to do just that on Myspace for quite some time.  Mostly to family I have on the other side of the country.  Slowly, though, I’ve noticed some are switching to Facebook, and some are sticking to Myspace.  Here in-lies my quandry. . .

. . .Many many moons ago I had my one yahoo email account.  I used it for everything; then when I started getting 2 emails a month from people that I knew and 4,000 from spam and accounts I signed up to, I had an epiphany: sign up to a 2nd yahoo account to use as my sign-up, the the 1st as my personal.  Fast-Forward 13 years . . . I now have 5 Yahoo email accts, 4 Myspace accts, 3 Gmail accts, 2 Hotmail accts, and 1 AOL acct.  That doesn’t include the 3 I have for Deviant Radio, or 2 I use for my “day job”.  See how this has spiraled out of control?  That is what I’m afraid of happening with Myspace (more so than now) and Facebook.  I don’t really converse with enough people to warrant 1/10th of those accts, let alone all of them.

I finally broke down and signed-up to Facebook.  But I froze at activating my account.  I’m not really sure if I want to.  Biff tells me I have to, it’s my responsibility as a tech-savvy web frontiers-man.  My question is, do I REALLY, REALLY need this account?  Also, how far out is the next big site that I just absolutely have to sign up to?  I think I’m gonna be really pissed off if I HAVE to talk to people on myspace, facebook, and (insert site here).  It would be one thing if EVERYBODY moved and I could just trash the old accounts, but that doesn’t seem likely.

Let’s be honest (that was for you Daryl), I’d be really awesome if Yahoo just completely shut down so I could knock out 1/4 of my email accounts all @ once.  It AIN’T gonna happen, though.  Notice I still have an AOL account?  C’mon they’ve been dead for years, and their damn email is still around.

So, what do you think?  Should I, should I not, am I required to?  Let me know in the comments below, or reply to my Twitter account: @deviantradio.