Sunday, October 7, 2012

Pinterested??

When I first joined Pinterest, one main question that I asked myself and then others asked was "Why?"

And another, "What's the purpose?"

On the one hand, Pinterest gives the user the ability to be barraged by images all at once.  I think for some it comes across as just some sort of massive assault to the senses.  In some ways, it definitely is.

However, when you delve a little deeper, it is more than just visual splendor. You can peruse links to various websites but also follow others (much like Twitter) who have similar interests and categories.

You can make boards to sort things to pin into any category you like, so this makes it particularly handy for somethings that I like to browse Pinterest for:

1) Future Art: Since my fabulous art classes in high school and college, I often longed to have a more convenient version of my clip book.  Back in the old days, one would clip photos out of magazines and stuff them into categories so that basically you had a catalog of stock photos of various people, animals, places and objects to do art studies.  Now through the magic of the internet you can find these things readily with a Google search. But Pinterest makes it even easier by giving you a way to find and pin images for future use.  Extremely handy if you ask me.

2)Recipes: Few things will make me more hungry than browsing Pinterest at mealtime.  It's my own fault for following people who post fabulous looking items.

3)Clothing: I'm not exactly a clothes or shoe horse, but I do like to look at items and dream of creating a wardrobe where I didn't have to worry about what an item costs.

4)Landscape Photography: Again this fuels my dreams of travel.  I love looking at photos of beautiful, exotic places that I can't possibly afford to go to.  Yet I still imagine myself in a cabin in the woods, relaxing in some Italian gondola, or drinking something delicious and tropical beside pristine waters and crashing waves.

So, as you can see it isn't necessarily merely a time waster, though one could certainly waste plenty of time.  Much like Facebook, it isn't a site's fault if you use it to misuse your time, that's your own fault. And certainly for the visually oriented it can help sort, plan, experiment and dream.

Who doesn't like that?

http://pinterest.com/saratheartist/

3 comments:

  1. Now I get it!!!!! hahaha, i've been asking myself what Pininterest is for, too!! Great ideas--I'm trying to learn how to cook, so instead of jotting down ideas in my journal/agenda, i can pin them. Thank you! :)

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  2. Love Pinterest! I used to keep an inspiration file of magazine clippings. Pinterest eliminates all of that clutter. It's particularly convenient since I use Paprika to electronically organize my recipes and I now read most of my magazines on my iPad.

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  3. I like it because instead of copying and posting great ideas into a word document or something else on my computer, I can just look it up on my Pinterest acct. It's like a cloud for ideas, etc. The only problem comes in when someone deletes their page or info off of the internet and then you no longer have it.

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