I tweeted this thought some time ago, making me guilty of what I am about to decry. Yay me!

With the social networking that so many of us are involved in, we have tons of opportunities to talk to each other. Most of my friends, both real life and strictly internet-based, are available to me through any number of the following media: public message boards, private message boards, livejournal, facebook, blogs, email, and twitter. There are a few with whom I communicate only using one of those, but mostly it’s two or more.

There is a certain amount of overlap, obviously. People briefly announce on facebook something that may occasion a more substantial blog or board post. There is the devil’s tool which automagically tweets your facebook status updates, or is it that it facebooks your twitter updates? I’m not sure, but several of my twitter friends are also facebook friends, and there’s nothing like getting same-day reruns…kind of like staying glued to a cable news channel for too long. There are people who disseminate stuff on one or another medium which you are fully aware they have found through a mutual friend…who is not given the customary hat-tip. SHOCKING!

So I maintain that the modern social networking reality requires, and will, with luck, engender, Modern Grace.

Modern Grace is knowing which immediate things to disseminate on Twitter; which longer-term things are made for Facebook; and which substantial thoughts really belong on a blog or board. Which isn’t to suggest that boards are worthy only of substance, because they aren’t, exclusively. To me, it also means crediting your sources. And most importantly, acknowledging and apologizing if necessary for heinous cross-posting, which may make your friends decide to pare down the number of places in which they interact with you.

Or may not!

I don’t find that “networking” with so many people in so many places is redundant—well, not in the cases where the people have attained at least a modicum of grace.