Too Hip to be Square

This is not actually a post about Huey Lewis and the News.  Please try to contain your disappointment.

There are several technological type things that are about on the Internet that I haven't incorporated into my universe yet.  I suppose I just can't be bothered to learn a new thing, or I don't fully understand the purpose, utility or benefits of them thoroughly. 

First: RSS feeds and readers.  My husband subscribes to about 472* of them and when I catch a glimpse of his inbox and see 1023 unread messages** parts of me start to twitch.  Now, while I understand that I wouldn't be required to subscribe to that many feeds (and I don't even feel cool enough to use that term), but the thought is still slightly overwhelming.  I don't know that I want Lolcats and CakeWrecks and whatnot filling my inbox.  My inbox is the place where my friends send me notes and my online accounts tell me important stuff.  I don't want to clutter it with other stuff.  I could create separate folders like my husband does, but again I say that smacks of effort.

Secondly, the # tags on Twitter.  I've barely figured out how to shorten links so they don't take up my entire tweet.  While I understand the purpose of the # tag things I don't ever think to use them.  Maybe my tweets don't fit into categories, which isn't to say that they're so original and groundbreaking that they can't be defined or that they defy labels because they're so free and unfettered.  No, I think they're just so very average that I don't know what to tag them as.  Is there a "random stuff no one really needs to know" tag?  Or maybe a "vanity and other useless info" tag?  And if so, do I really want to waste any of my 140 characters on it?  I think not.

Finally, what in the world is Tumblr for?  I will admit to having done absolutely no research into this at all.  I know that some of the web comics I read have them, but that's about the extent of it.  Along the same lines, I have no idea what Digg, Reddit, or Stumbleupon are for aside from some hastily drawn conclusions based on their names. 

Am I missing out on all the greatness that the World Wide Web has to offer?  Am I being passed by as the Internet swirls on about me?  Do you know what these things are, or do, and can you help convince me that I need to add them to my life?  Tell me, oh Internet!  What are the wonders that lie inside these crazy things?  I still have a LiveJournal and I'm on Facebook and Twitter.  Oh yeah, and I have a blog.  I have the sites that I visit frequently on my bookmark toolbar.  I have "favorites."  Am I living in the rotary-phone age of the Internet?  Can I graduate to a cellular phone, or even a smart phone?  I'm not so sure.  I resisted PDAs with every breath as long as I could, and even resisted getting a phone that did more than, you know, call people.  It was only when a friend of my husbands had one he wasn't using that I even got a phone with e-mail and Internet... now I don't want to go back.  If I learn how to use those sites will I forget how to just poke around the Internet aimlessly like I used to?  Do I want that?  Does it matter?


*Perhaps a slight exaggeration
**Actually not an exaggeration at all