Make the internet a better place...

Okay, I admit it. I'm on the internet a lot. Sometimes it's for work--uploading students' grades, searching for images to improve my powerpoints, updating Robyn James Trio records, etc. But it's usually for fun--reading about friends on Facebook, taking stupid quizzes, and reading BuzzFeed lists. I'm making a concerted effort to change my experience when using the internet.

Some of you have probably read about the person who stopped liking things on Facebook. There's also an article about a person who started liking things on Facebook. To each his/her own. Hopefully most of you know that many websites (including Facebook) track your web activity and then cater their ads to places you visit. Also, Facebook monitors everything you like and follow, and then suggests other pages based on that info. The person who stopped liking everything did so in order to see if his/her Facebook experience changed.

I don't remember that person's results, but I can tell you from personal experience that it gets better when you stop liking everything. Facebook can still tailor their ads to my shopping preferences, but it doesn't know what pages to suggest to me anymore. My feed used to be plastered with ads from some stupid boot store. Thankfully, those ads tell you which of your friends like the mentioned store. Once I stopped liking those friends' posts, the boot ads disappeared.

So the first goal of this post is to make sure my readers are informed. The second is to explain to my Facebook friends why I've been using a lot more emoji (Facebook calls them "stickers") lately. Instead of clicking "Like" on every post I find amusing, informative, or inspirational, I take the time to give a more detailed response by commenting. If I have something specific to say, I'll type that. But other times I just want to convey an emotion that the post elicited. So far I've found something to cover almost every reaction. Hopefully you now understand why there are so many monkeys, Snoopy faces, and other cartoonish characters all over your feed...

Also, it's just fun to make use of all the emoji out there. How can you not resist these?

Meep

Pusheen

Ya-Ya

Changing Priorities

I know it's been forever since I blogged and I'm sorry! I have a ton of dreams to share with you all. I just haven't had time to sit down and transfer them from the scrawled notes on my phone into readable blog narratives. So I'm not here to share a dream just yet. As my frequent readers know, I usually remember my dreams in great detail. And since it's currently 2:00 in the morning, I'm here to share a shorter message.

I don't make new year's resolutions. When I want to better myself I make the decision to do it right then, no matter what day of the year it is. Today (well, yesterday really) I decided not to waste my time when it comes to reading things on the internet. I send so many articles to my Kindle to read later (I do this so I don't have to stare at the computer screen for too long) that I'm way behind in my reading. To give you an idea: It's February and I'm still reading digests that I sent to myself in November.

The subject matter of the articles I save varies widely--anything from album reviews to social and political commentary to celebrity interviews to Wikipedia entries. I'm also not ashamed to admit that many of them are BuzzFeed lists. BuzzFeed is a great way to escape for a moment from grading papers and writing tests. But I get so caught up in reading "50 Things That Remind You Of Your Childhood" that I miss more important content like "How To Flip Your Classroom" or "How To Get Your Students To Practice."

So I've decided that if I see a BuzzFeed list or some kind of tell-all article about who Matt Bellamy is or isn't dating, I will read it at that moment or forget about it. I will no longer bookmark them or email them to myself. The articles with more important subject matter will be sent to my Kindle (via Instapaper, a great site).

My time is precious and my brain can only hold so much information, so why waste valuable space in my noggin (and hours of my long days) on reading about what stupid thing Kanye West did at the most recent award show?

What about you? Do you need to give up something in order to make space for things that really matter?