Social networks have been around for hundreds of years. Social networks using the internet are a new fad and seemed to make sense. Most require you to gather a group of people, share some common interests and then comment on each other’s happenings.

I deactivated my Facebook account this week and deleted the companion app from my iPhone. Twitter doesn’t have a ‘deactivate’ feature–only delete–and I’m not ready to make that decision yet. Twitteriffic is gone from the iPhone too.

I realized that the constant exposure to other’s lives through social network sites left me feeling empty. I had subcontracted human contact to Facebook and Twitter, allowing to maintain the illusion of ‘keeping in touch’ without touching anything.

One example is my friendship with [Matt](http://kerner.net) and [Sarah Kerner](http://beautyschooldropout.net). I know so much about what goes on in their day-to-day life through Twitter that my urge to talk to them on the phone fades. Instead, I want know them by fixing a dinner and spending a few hours talking about what’s been on the smoker lately or a frustrating knitting project of Sarah’s. When I follow them on Twitter, it replaces the desire to call, write or just talk. That means fewer in-person social investments and pretty soon, we’re friends that “drift apart” and no one can understand why. I want to change how this makes me feel.

That’s not to say that Matt and Sarah are doing something wrong. They socialize in a way that makes them happy and fulfilled. I needed to step away from the all-you-can-share social buffet because it was empty calories for me emotionally. I felt like I was fed, but I really wasn’t. At my age and life experience, I’ve learned to assign value to relationships using many factors, but the physical interactions seem to have the most currency. Sharing a beer on the deck with my neighbor makes me feel very connected to him and his family, even though we only talk a few times a month.

Following friends and family on Twitter keeps me very *informed*, but I don’t feel *connected*. I can’t see the pain on a friend’s face when they talk about taking a pay cut to keep a job. I won’t hear the rest of the conversations about bills, extra jobs or being out of ideas to make things work. How will I truly know that someone is reaching out for help.

Living relationships are not maintained 140 characters at a time. I’ve stopped pretending that it could work. Take a look at your life and see if the same is true for you.

Like many people, I work Monday through Friday and have weekends off. I try not to take it for granted and so I use my weekends to give back to the nice house that takes care of me during the week. That means I mow the lawn, kill weeds and do little “fix up” chores to keep the house happy. It makes my regular work week nights trouble-free.

This weekend I’m confronted with many choices, the first of which was the water softener. It was hungry for salt so a quick trip to Dillon’s for pellets solved that problem. We actually fixed the whole setup about a month ago and then a minor adjustment two weeks later got it working just fine. The lack of hard water buildup on the shower door was the most obvious benefit. Dishes look better coming out of the dishwasher and clothes that are left to dry don’t end up with odd white rings.

Ahh, much better.

I edited the plugin that connects my blog with Twitter and Facebook. This is a test, only a test.