I came to social media reluctantly. I didn’t think it was a fashionable trend that would fizzle and go away but I didn’t like the intrusion on my privacy by strangers. My age, my marital status, where I lived, my pets was all information I wasn’t comfortable “putting out there”. It was telling faceless strangers about me. It didn’t matter if I joined a forum where I used a created username, more often sooner than later I would be asked something personal. When I would refuse to answer I would be held suspect. I went through the discomfort that my IP address pointed at my address. If I divulged too much, something evil would happen. My inhibitions.
It isn’t that I don’t like social
media. In fact – I love it. My Smartphone is my friend when I need instant
directions, hours of a business, menus for possible eating spots.
I am an avid
YouTube Troll. The vast DIYs, tutorials, animations, cartoons, personal
tragedies caught on film keep me watching. I am astonished at the creativity of
humans, their willingness to share experiences and knowledge. If it
wasn’t for the social media platform YouTube I would never have thought of THIS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGV4q8-NV7c
Nope, never would have walked into a Dollar Store and thought “Hey, I can make
an awesome floral mirror for my hallway with a bunch of plastic spoons”. YouTube
showed me the way. Improve my life, relationships, decor. It’s out there…somewhere.
It isn’t a community at my door step; it is the world in my lap.
Take an
awesome drive around the Roman coliseum on Google Streetview (Check it out in
David Ashworth’s article http://www.returnondigital.com/blog/google-street-view-takes-in-the-colosseum
). Not only does Social Media keep you in real time of what your friends are
doing, but you can watch a tutorial on something techie over and over
until you get it. And then you can share it with the few or many.
Awesome. I can learn at my own pace because if I didn’t get it the first time,
I can replay it or...I can search for a completely different take on it. I can
take a class in my pajamas sitting in bed! It is space and we ourselves are the
final frontier. We’re not boldly going out, we’re bringing it in.
I remember when you punched data
cards to create binary information, which permitted huge computers to store or
retrieve data in huge databases. Only a few trained professionals could punch
those cards and speak the binary tongue. Not the many. Mega computers shrank,
they turned up in businesses and then those computers began to network and those
networked computers formed the mighty internet. The internet lead to the World
Wide Web and computers had entered homes. Now it was you and I who were pulling
content and retrieving documents.
THEN we were not only pulling
content but we began to make content and in essence became content. We began to
push ourselves. We weren’t static, we were dynamic! Web 2.0 arrived and fast on
its heels was Web 3.0. We could respond on forums to each other, to the
opinions of others, comment on news items. We could like each other...or not. We
could live in Cyperspace, we became not a part of the world but a part
of a universe and with it came programming that made it all easier and
efficient for us to share...almost anything. We could, through Wordpress or
Blogger create a personal online journal on any topic without ever
understanding html or JavaScript.
It wasn’t going away. It was
empowering itself with usage.
I catch up with my son’s life while
waiting in the Doctor’s office. He lives 3 hours away but I am texting him in
real time, his answers to my Mummy prodding questions are more ambiguous than I
would like. A friend shares a photo of her new cat with me. I share an inspirational
quote with a group. I “like” a posting which pushes it to family and friends. A
quirky friend tweets me something so quirky that I am tweetless.
Its wondrous, thought and emotion
provoking and endless.
A passenger on the road home, I
check in on my Smartphone only to discover that 42 minutes ago a devastating
tornado had struck Oklahoma. The radio station isn’t even broadcasting it yet
but I am pulling up video.
Is Social Media Just a Fad? No, no
it isn’t.
