My “coping mechanism” so far has been to focus on quality:
1. My RSS reader is Google Reader. Plain and simple. And I know that only my close friends are there, so I share things meant for them there (e.g. politics, personal commentary, etc)
2. I use Friendfeed for broader discussion/”broadcasting” purposes (and yes, I link it to Twitter). The interface is great, the “quality” of discussion is much higher than I get on Facebook or Twitter, and b/c it aggregates everything, it helps reduce the overload problem.

Of course there is some overlap between #1 and #2, but that’s no big deal b/c personal sharing and public sharing aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive (and FriendFeed takes care of Twitter for me and the Facebook app lets me pipe FriendFeed into my Facebook if I wanted). The real “social media” pain point I have is that I wind up using Twitter independently of FriendFeed b/c many of my friends/contacts don’t actively use Friendfeed. What I really need is:

- a way to filter only the interesting Tweets that I care about into Friendfeed (like the filter feature on Tweetdeck)
- a way to pass on @’s and DM’s to Friendfeed

Which brings us back to you, Reid. Can you get Google or Friendfeed to fix my problems for me? :-)

@Bergy – Your solution is great, but that’s only if everyone does it. You could turn off updates on your own end, but you can’t filter anything if your friends do it.

Proposal: Turn off your multiple-network-updating “features.” Instead, use each network for its intended purpose. Leave facebook for updates on location, relationships, and jobs; use Twitter for short but interesting insights or bits of news; and write on blogs for longer narratives or analytical pieces? Is that too much to ask?