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~tlf

"Is there anything that helps you manage that feeling of pressure when there's more engagement than you expected?"

It's something I still work with. What helped me was learning about that research that we could only handle a maximum of 140 "friends" on social media. That taught me to acknowledge and respect my own limitations, whatever they might be.

My main rule is that "offline life comes before than online life". Virtual is infinite, but we are very, very limited beings. So I'll abandon online activity if something is happening here that needs attention. That includes feeling pressured - it's time to close the laptop then or switch to non-interactive stuff.

When there is more engagement than I'm comfortable with, I update the main post instead of replying individually. I've also told myself that short responses are enough. So just saying, "really helpful, thank you", is fine even in response to a long blub (you can try it here :D ).

Some of us suffer from a mantra of "not enough" (I haven't done enough, said enough, responded enough ...). Worth addressing that if it's the root cause.

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~nargran wrote (thread):

Thanks for such an insightful comment.

Didn't know there was research about the upper limits for online "personal connections" (I'm sure mine personally is well under 140). And offline life over online is a good rule, I try to do it already but just realized that the feeling of pressure is part of the offline life, even if it happens in response to online events. It's interesting how easy is to get mixed up what happens online from what happens offline (as well as what happens in your mind and what happens outside of it).