As someone who considers herself not only tech savvy but a bit of a gadget geek, it pains me to say this, but I have recently decided there is too darn much technology out there.

The past few weeks I’ve been thinking quite a bit about how technology fits into my life and my job. In early April Sound Publishing hosted a conference for editors and reporters. We live in a world where we are expected to do more with less, we shoot video, we take our own pictures more often than not, we write stories and lay out pages. We are also being expected to make the most of the tools in cyberspace.

Now we have Web sites for our paper that are becoming more dynamic and interactive daily as we are not only putting up stories but photos, heck, slideshows as well as videos and polls.

I am pretty sure Sound Publishing, our parent company, has a Facebook profile. (Web editor’s note: Close—PNWLocalNews.com has one.) Dennis Box, the editor, and I both have profiles on Facebook. I have had a couple of requests from professional contacts to check out Facebook since they have posted profiles. In fact, I just got a message from Ginger Passarelli, you know Mama, the original Soup Lady and owner of Mama Passarelli’s in Black Diamond.

A few weeks ago, Tim Perficul, spokesman for Mountain View Fire and Rescue sent me a similar request after setting up a group for his department also known as King County Fire District 44.

For me Facebook is where I’ve connected with former colleagues as well as classmates from Interlake High in Bellevue. I’m still wrestling with creating a connection with folks I know in a professional capacity because I am trying to maintain a balance between work and my personal life.

Then again, anyone who knows me is aware of the fact that I have a BlackBerry, though this is my personal cell phone I have my work e-mail set up to go to it. And some of my contacts have discovered I return e-mails on my BlackBerry at all hours of the day and night as well as on weekends.

But, I have a weekend phone, too. I don’t get my work e-mail on that and if I want to have some boundaries with e-mail I can.

Lately the newest thing to get the journalism industry buzzing is Twitter, which is a microblogging service and even a news feed if you set it up that, where you can post ‘tweets’ at a max of 140 characters.

What freaks me out about Twitter is the fact people can follow your tweets. Plus I hear there is the potential for spam and porn out there, too, so the possibility of cyber-stalking and abuse turns me off.

Yet, this is a tool that could prove useful. A pair of Reporter sports writers used Twitter to microblog during the Washington State Basketball Championships. That’s a great use of the service.

And I could see using it for breaking news if I’m out covering something major since I do have that BlackBerry with the full keyboard.

And then I remember that Dennis’ dang phone goes off from Twitter alerts so much it makes me want to stomp it with my Doc Martens. My phone buzzes enough already between text messages — and I do a paltry 3,000 to 4,000 texts a month, your average teenager these days does 10,000 a month or more — and e-mails.

I worry about overload. I admit that all these new tools out there are beginning to overwhelm even me.

Balance is a word we use quite often in this office because putting this paper out is a two-person show and I promise you we are each doing the job of four people.

So how do we balance the use of these new tools? How can we find helpful ways to incorporate them into our work without them taking over our lives?

At some point I suspect, kicking and screaming the whole way, I will set up a Twitter account. It could end up much the same way the scenario played out when I begrudgingly got my first camera phone in early 2004. I was absolutely dead set against the idea. It seemed ridiculous. I had a point and shoot that I could use to take good photos that was just as portable.

Then I got the Sanyo VM4500, back in the days before the RAZR and every phone had a model number and not a name, on Sprint. Before I knew it I was snapping away, sending the shots to friends in picture messages, even posting them to my sad little Angelfire site which shockingly still exists.

I guess I am resigned to my fate to tweet or adopt whatever other new-fangled tech fad, er, I mean tool comes along.

What can I do? I’m a tech savvy person in a business that has always been a sink or swim kind of industry. Adapt or get out.

Pardon me while I go sign up for a Twitter account.