Friday Five: Internet Connections

Jan says: "I have vaguely been hearing about the coming trend of people using mobile internet devices rather than desktop computers. Having four adult children, I see them using cell phones, laptops, tablets, ipods/iphones/ipads instead of the desktop computer, which I am using right nowSo I am asking you to answer the following questions about whatever device you most often use these days, first by telling us what you have:"
1. Do you use social connections, like Facebook, Twitter, Linked-in or whatever else there is? Describe how you use it/these. Oh my, yes...I am hooked up to all of it at some level, though usage varies.  I use my e-mail and Facebook, along with texting as the primary means of virtual communication, I tweet now and again and lurk there as a diversion at times, but it has never really become the part of me that it has for some of my friends.  I have noted that there are some really fascinating conversations (I guess???) that go on, especially about emergent church, that I would love to be more engaged in, even as a spectator, but I have to draw lines somewhere with the virtual world, and I guess that is one. Sigh.  Fb has many uses, connection with current friends, catch ups with people I've lost track of, seeing pics of the new baby or grand, getting great links to articles I may not otherwise have caught when my friends re-post things, seeing things that make me laugh, go "hmmmm" or YUCK or sometimes just pray for the sorry state of the world.  My circles on Fb tend to friends, family, RevGals and their churches and other churchy type organizations, so it is a good way for me to stay in touch with that side of my life while I work away in the "other side" of it. I am on Linked-in and have followed a few conversations there, but they tend to (IMHO) get a little long and drawn out and I kind of lose interest. I don't know what that says, that I enjoy following a Twitter thread more....but there it is!

2. Do you text on your cell phone? Work, friends, family? Yes, yes, and yes. I started texting with the old phone that had a traditional telephone keyboard and upgraded to a slide-out qwerty with my Android.  Much better (except for that ever-interesting auto correct!)

3. Do you play any games? Which ones? Sadly, yes. Several.  Some with bubbles, some with jewels, some with cards, some with dice, some with tiles.  Some alone and some with friends.  Some that I think were originally designed for persons much younger than myself.  It is downtime, and perhaps time that could be better spent.  Mind candy perhaps.  But then I remind myself about those studies that tell us that games are good for the brain.  I am simply keeping my synapses agile. That is my story and I am sticking to it. Play!

4. How do you predominantly use the various electronic devices you possess? I use a computer at work to do case notes, record assessment data and do correspondence, I write my sermons on a computer (though I have yet to preach from my tablet...I'm considering it). I also use the laptop, the tablet and my smartphone for e-mail, photos, music, and Fb and the tablet and computer for games.  They are somewhat interchangeable through there are limits with screen and keyboard size how much writing I want to do on anything other than the laptop. Visual: I am sitting in an airport, earbuds hooked up to smartphone which in tuned into a podcast of Krista Tippit, while I idly play with various apps on my tablet. I like the one that lets me make watercolory drawings for times such as this.  I am plugged into the wall with both chargers, sipping a mocha.  life is good!

5. How do you feel about blogging? Are you as involved in blogging as when you first started? What facilitates your blogging? Blogging saved my life.  That sounds a little dramatic, but when I was out there on the prairie wrestling with so many things, knowing there was a community like Revgals and being able to connect was soooo important.  Blogging was also the place I claimed my voice as a writer and got the confidence to say yes to some writing projects. No book yet, unlike some of my other blogging sisters, but maybe someday.   I also love reading blogs and regret there is not more time in the day to do that.  I would love to read every blog of every RevGal I know (who is still writing) on a regular basis, but it doesn't happen.  once in a while I treat myself with a binge and just read for hours and play catch up on everyone's life.  Of course the downside of that is that if something major has happened I feel like a complete schmuck not to have known.  Fortunately most of us are also on Fb and so we do keep up that way, and as many of us have commented, Fb has kind of replaced blogging in a not to satisfying, but much quicker way for many of us.

Bonus: Anything you want to add.  I always have to smile a bit when I think about myself in relation to technology.  I think it must have been somewhere back in about 2002 or so that I made the silly remark that I thought I might be kind of done with tech...that I knew what I was going to know, was doing what I was going to do....then came blogging, html codes, smart phones and apps, tablets, downloads and uploads, clouds and tweets. I'm still learning, and nope, not done, not yet!