In the Click of a Mouse

By Belinda

It used to be "the blink of an eye," but now all it takes is the click of a mouse and you can find yourself wishing you had not been quite so speedy with your "trigger finger."

Twice lately I've thought, "Now why did I just do that?!"

When I recently had an article published in an on-line publication I was excited about it and wanted to link it to my Facebook page but instead of clicking the FB button, I accidentally clicked that I "Liked" it. How silly did I feel, having proclaimed for all the world to see that "Belinda Cater-Burston Liked" her own article. My friend Susan told me tonight that it is possible to "un-like" something. This might prove to be useful information for someone else out there! I wish I had known. It must be like "un-friending" someone on Facebook!

But that was mild compared to what happened early this week when I received an invitation from someone to connect with them on Linkedin, a professional networking website. I intended only to accept their invitation, but my finger must have twitched momentarily, because to my horror, I found that with the click of a mouse, I had sent an invitation to everyone in my email address book. I would never do this on purpose. I steadfastly refuse any application that requests access to my email address book, but the dirty deed was done. And I don't believe I could have "un-clicked." :)

That was that, I thought. No use crying over clicked mice. I receive frequent invitations to connect to people and if I don't recognize the name I usually just ignore the invitation.

But people were so kind. I started to get a steady stream of emails from friends asking me to explain what Linkedin is, or apologizing that they didn't want to join. I didn't expect people to take the trouble to connect personally and I felt both touched and guilty that a) some people didn't want to reject the invitation without letting me know why, and b) that I had caused them the trouble of explaining why.

I did end up hearing from some people with whom I hadn't connected for a while as a result of this. It was wonderful to catch up with the latest news in one another's lives. That was one nice side effect of my fiasco.

Then there was an avalanche of announcements about people with whom I was now connected. Sometimes I didn't know who they were--but they must have been in my address book. :) I am connected to most people on planet earth at this point.

I hope that any friends who have not already emailed me will accept this group apology and explanation. :)

And although the book of James says that our tongues are the most unruly members of our bodies,  the index finger of my right hand is giving my tongue a run for its money.