Social Media: 4 Very Different Perspectives, Part 4
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I did not expect this. Last year, my college age daughter found out that her boyfriend was leaving her because he changed his “relationship status” on Facebook. This is very bad behavior… but now within the range of normal (though still impolite) for Facebook. Likewise 5 years ago, I did not expect my 14-year-old daughter to insist on moving from MySpace to Facebook with the words, “MySpace is for little kids.”
I like to look at social networking as a broad-based social phenomenon. My test case involved parenting my daughters. First there was the constant instant messaging 8 years ago. Now they text using their phones exclusively. No email. No voicemail. I think it keeps it clean and “right now” for them. Social networking is, if anything, about flow, immediacy and relevance.
I joined Facebook about 2 years ago. Got my “cool Dave” photograph out. I look fit and young. I have gone to parties and events from invitations from friends distributed through Facebook. I’ve done the important culling of “friend” invitations through the oh-so-important ignore button. I’ve emailed people and asked, “how do I know you?” Facebook is the all purpose web application to find out what is going on with people who find Facebook valuable enough to spend a lot of time on it. I check in to Facebook about 4 times a week. I will increase that participation as it increases in relevance for me.
So what about other social networks? I’m an observer of, but not a contributor to, political blogs. I have my favorites that I check several times each day. It has become another newspaper experience. I don’t have any cause-based social network yet, as I’m busy enough collecting and interpreting the information feed I’m getting on selected topics.
Social media is a major new application of technology to our daily lives. Time to wake up and participate.
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