Cleaning up my smart phone...and other stuff.

I've decided to clean up my phone -- delete unused apps, delete pics or move them to Picasa and to better organize the remaining data. I'm going to continue to scale back on my social media time and spend more time reading -- both books and internet news articles.

No more check-ins via Swarm or Foursquare (two of the apps I deleted).
Less time on Facebook (I do spend more time on Twitter, but most of my feed is linked to articles in areas of interest to me rather than status updates).

Really, if it weren't for family and extended family, I'd probably drop Facebook altogether. As it is, I'm getting ready to do another Facebook friend purge.
If you get dropped, please do not take offense nor read anything malicious into it. I'm just going to re-tool my Facebook use and use it to primarily keep up with family and relatives, as well as some friends that I don't have any personal contact with.
If I see you regularly (like at church or something), we can converse rather than read each other's updates. Feel free to follow me on Twitter at @magicianary or like my Facebook account at The Message in Magic.

It's a little weird to think that disconnecting from people is a good thing, but I think that this is a case where that is true.

In keeping with my Thursdays are for thanksgiving theme, I should say that I am thankful for my family and friends. I just want to be more intentional about relationships where I can be -- personal contact, real conversations, shared experiences. I would like to think that I can be a positive influence and hope to be encouraged by my relationships with others.

I may take a page from my blogger friend Bilbo's book and actually write a few longhand letters in the coming year. I would much rather have a personal discussion with you about politics, religion, life in general or pretty much anything at all, than to post memes or argue positions via comments on yours, mine or a third parties post.

And I guess that means I'll have to get out of my house and actually interact with people -- ugh!
So be it.

John <><