There is an email in my inbox from my sister that I’ve been ignoring, but it’s on my mind. A couple weeks ago, after hinting that I might be interested, she invited me to Pinterest. Just because I haven’t opened the email (or the reminder that came a week later) doesn’t mean I don’t think about it. Every day.
See, I’ve been stalking my friends’ Pinterest pages and I’m thinking about coming out from hiding.
For those of you who have never heard of Pinterest (first of all, remove rock and see the light) it is a self-described “virtual pin board” that one can “tack” ideas to. Basically, if you come across a picture of something you like you can “pin” it to a board, so it is saved and you can come back to it anytime you have access to the internet.
Sounds great!
I love ideas. I love trying new things. I love being organized. I love quotes. I hate forgetting things and live in fear of having a great idea and losing it in the sea of never-ending thoughts that is my brain. Those are the reasons I am interested in Pinterest. It makes me want to make a room in my house (if I had a house) entirely out of cork board and start cutting out ideas from magazines like a madwoman. But, surprise, the 21st century saves me from that craziness and makes this dream of mine quicker, cheaper, easier, and, of course, virtual.
So why haven’t I signed up yet?
As I have mentioned before, probably ad nauseum, in Germany I have ridiculous amounts of free time cushioned around basketball. I read, teach, write, bake, and have probably tried most hobbies you can think of but all of that still leaves me spending a couple hours daily on the internet. Facebook, of course, is my go to time-waster and I fear adding another “lose track of time” website might not be my best move.
What worries me is the not knowing if Pinterest has the ability to turn into something more than just a place to store my ideas. It already is described on Wikipedia as a social media site and I really only need one of those. It’s too late for me to work on my Facebook dependency but I like to think I’m smart enough not to get into another addiction if I can help it.
But am I really avoiding it if I sneak a peek at my sister’s new pins every day? This may even be worse because I’m in denial. I’ll use a food analogy. It’s like when you don’t buy a bag of candy at the grocery store because you don’t trust yourself not to eat the whole thing in one sitting, but then you end up thinking about it or eating your friend’s candy anyway. Well, that settles it, I’m buying some chocolate and joining Pinterest, what do you think?