Smarterer(er)

First of all, y'all should know I'm a BzzAgent. Being a BzzAgent is really cool. You get to try new things and tell people about them in person, on facebook, on twitter, or on a blog. You can join at bzzagent and start trying and sharing new things.

I recently got to try Smarterer. I have to say that I don't really get it. You can go there and test your knowledge of facebook, twitter and the like and prove that you're smarter(er) than your facebook using peers, I guess. Maybe it's a step forward to feeling less shame about how much time we spend with our tech. Instead of lying about how much time spent tweeting and facebooking, we embrace it and prove to our friends that even if we haven't been outside in days at least we're smarterer about facebook. Now there's another way to waste time on the internet. Sick of just browsing people statuses on facebook? Show them how much better you are at browsing than they are.

Maybe I'm just not ready to let go of my tech shame yet. I want to hang onto the guilt about how much time I really spend on my computer and not talking to real people. I'm not ready to boast about it. Feeling shame makes me feel like I haven't completely gone to the antisocial tech dark side yet.

Am I being too harsh? I also don't really like the name. It takes me back to elementary school taunts. "I'm smarter!" "Oh, yeah, well I'm smarterer infinity!"

In the interest of full disclosure, I only too the BzzAgent test. I got a little obsessed with getting my percentage into the smarterer category. I kept going back and answering more questions until I could prove I was smarterer than other BzzAgents out there. Then I took a step back and wondered why it was so important to me. I don't need to prove that I spend more time on the internet. It's not something I'm proud of.

I think I'll go read a book now.