It’s twelve days into a new year. I hope this post finds everyone healthy, happy, and fully recovered from the festivities of the holiday season. It’s been a long time since I’ve written a post. Sadly, my goal of one post a week went by the wayside due to a more pressing priority–The Dissertation. It’s still not completed but, due to some issues, I was able to defer it for a little bit so that I can turn in something of quality and substance. At least that’s the plan.
The Dissertation is heavily focused on social media. Twitter to be specific. There is an Arts Marketing component to it but I won’t bore you with that. (If you are interested in how pub theatres use Twitter for marketing purposes, send me a message and we’ll chat.) Anyways, I’ve been fascinated by social media for years. I even wrote a post about Facebook a few years ago. Despite my fascination, I am far from an early adopter to this form of communication. You might say I entered into its usage kicking and screaming with every new medium. Yet, I now have more social media accounts than my teenage daughter and after I finish my hissy fit for feeling the need to join, I become a fairly active participant. I use Facebook to keep up with friends and family, Pinterest to file away recipes and photos of my favourite actors (don’t judge), Instagram and Flickr to share photos, YouTube to watch all sorts of stuff and to share Simon’s Cat videos with The Blonde Child, and Twitter for news, information, and sometimes a good laugh. Oh, and I write a blog. There are a couple of others I use but you get the picture…I’ve jumped squarely onto the social media bandwagon and I don’t see myself jumping off any time soon.
What I’ve found, from a great deal of research, is social media has allowed us to form communities that are not restricted by geography. We now have the opportunity to communicate, create, and share content with each other on topics we have in common whilst never needing to be in the same room or country. I do understand the negative sides of social media. The overwhelming need for some people to over-share, how rapidly and exponentially bad or hateful messages spread, and how some people feel that being on the internet gives them a buffer and the entitlement to be nasty to others are a few things that are drawbacks to being part of these online communities. But all of this doesn’t stop many of us from participating.
Lately, I’ve thought a lot about why I use social media. Deep down, I know it’s a time-suck and I could probably spend that time doing more constructive things but I am so drawn to it that I’ve chosen to write my Masters dissertation on the topic. The big answer seems to be that I enjoy communication. I find the sharing of information, ideas, and, sometimes, silly cat videos stimulating. While I’d love to say that my ego doesn’t need my thoughts to be shared with hundreds of people in the time it takes to make a cup of tea, I’d be fooling myself. I get a bit giddy when someone I don’t know retweets or favourites something I write on Twitter. And I know I’m not the only one who gets a bit of pleasure when a complete stranger repins something I’ve pinned on Pinterest or starts to follow me on Instagram or Twitter.
This is part of the reason I have embraced social media and have chosen it as a topic of study. So, now I’d like to put it to you. if you are reading thing, chances are you use some sort of social media. My question is why? Why did you start using social media and what makes you continue? This is one of those times I will beg for comments–not because it feeds my blogger’s ego but because I am truly interested and might possibly use it later for more serious research.
On My Mind 
I use just a few social media sites. Facebook and a very inactive tumblr that I launched to share thoughts and photos as I spead across the western United States rejoicing that I was still alive. Facebook keeps me up to date with friends, events, parties, exposes me to others love of art and poetry and authors, let’s me be my snarky witty self, console others, feeds my need to be of counsel to others in pain or in need of life advice (since I’m so perfect in that arena), and stay up too date on advances in a particular field of medicine. I don’t share photos other than landscapes via media as I’m leery of privacy issues..
So I guess I was in the age group that didn’t have much of a choose and was swept up in social media. I remember, not even very long ago, when people would scoff or gasp of someone told them they didn’t have a facebook. Now though I’m not very active on facebook. I’m on it all the time, but I’ve found that I can see most of my other friends on other sites and Facebook has manifested many people who I’m too lazy (or are family) to get rid of and I just don’t feel a need to share much about my life with them. However, recently for me Facebook has been very useful. I started following the pages for magazines (such as BOMB Magazine) and small presses (such as Ugly Duckling Presse) so I find interesting articles about art/writing and am always up to date on when the next reading in Brooklyn will be. Apart from Facebook I’m pretty active on social media (specifically Twitter and tumblr and to a lesser extent, Instagram). I guess a reason I’m still using them is partly as time wasters, but also they all allow for different kinds of interactions, and different kinds of communication with different people. I think because there are so many social media platforms, not everyone’s active on all of them, so some are active on some and others on others. I have different people I expect to see on Twitter than tumblr, and I can share my thoughts differently on each platform. On Twitter I often go on rants (which is probably not even the best place to do that sort of thing, but it has such a nice fast paced feeling that helps me put a lot of thoughts into 140 character tweets). On tumblr I’ll occasionally talk about something that’s been on my mind (which I’m probably doing totally backwards now that I’m thinking about it, but I’m sticking to it) and also have discussions about art/writing, because the art/writing community (whether it’s people I know or I don’t) there is bigger than any other webste I use. So I guess I still use them because they continue to be reliable places to connect. If there happens to be a way (I’m crossing my fingers for widely available teleportation) to do this better that’s not on a website, I don’t doubt that Id gravitate toward it.
Like many adolescents in 2005 I began using social media–MySpace at the time–becuase girls used it. I remember thinking, “why do I need to talk to people I sit next to in class outside of class?” Then a friend changed schools and in my senior year I did also. At that point the usefulness of social media, for my teenage self was clear–stay in touch with people I don’t see on a regular basis. I was a MySpace only person until 2008 when I began to use Facebook, and until 2013 I didn’t use anything else. I now use Facebook, twitter, Instagram, and reddit. Twitter let’s me say things I don’t want to say on Facebook, Instagram gives me neat pictures, and reddit is just…well… Reddit. I treat Facebook like a hub for my other social media accounts. The best of the posts from other accounts are linked to Facebook. If I ever use social media for networking it will most definitely be under a different account, as I don’t beehive in mixing business and pleasure, especially online where people only glimpse at what you’ve said while they’re scrolling, although I don’t voice too many controversial opinions online, just on Starbucks.
I joined social media because I became involved in fannish interests and wanted more, more, more! That is still mostly what I use most social media service for. I more or less refuse to get political on them as I have no desire to get involved in those kinds of discussions with strangers.
Why did I join social media and specifically Facebook? Well, because my wife joined first and was playing Mafia Wars (I know..ugh) and needed help to complete tasks. Next thing you know, I start playing it and she stops. Friends from high school and my other interests start coming out of the wood work and 6 years later here I am! I have connected and keep up with many family members that although I’d rather see in person, I at least can communicate and share with them photos and humorous reflections and the occasional political or social rant. It’s rather mind blowing when you think how far we’ve come with online communications in such a short time. Just think, 20 years ago, America Online was the pinnacle of online communications. Now, social media has infused itself into every single bit of our society. Funny though, it just can’t replace actual human contact. You can type or read thousands of words in a text or online conversation and yet you can learn more in two seconds by looking at someones facial or body expression when they walk into a room. Hopefully we never lose that ability to connect and that it never becomes a lost art. You just can’t replace the feeling you get when someone smiles at you or laughs at a joke. Online communication is great but it’s a pale copy at best. I can’t knock it too much though. I did meet my wife on it 20 years ago!
Reblogged this on tedmallory and commented:
A classmate of mine, working on her Masters in Communications in London posted this. It interested me as I’m currently teaching a unit on digital citizenship in my Civics class and just started teaching an HTML Programming class this semester. So how about you? Why do you use social media? Is it worth it?
Check out npr.org, they recently had a story about how our phones no longer allow us to be board when we’re “waiting on cue” (as I believe they say it over in the UK), This has results in never letting our minds wander, which they fear may reduce our creativity.
As someone from Arizona, with family in Michigan, who went to college in Nebraska, taught in California, now living in Iowa, with in-laws in Kansas and South Dakota and classmates in London, Alaska, New York as well as former students, professors, and colleagues in Asia, Africa, Mexico, Washington D.C., Florida, South Carolina, Germany, etc. etc… I appreciate being able to keep in touch and “follow” (live vicariously) the lives of so many people spread out across this little planet.
As an educator and artist I also appreciate the opportunity to develop a Personal Learning Network (PLN). I’ve met & correspond with (not just follow) a writer in Key West, a graphic designer in Delaware, a political cartoonist in Nevada and an activist in Ohio, all of who’s brains I’ve been able to pick when needed. Even the cess-pool of drama, Facebook has proven an invaluable resource al la the “Art Teacher’s” Group.
Mind you, these uses may be more “noble” or profound than just playing candy-crush, but they haven’t made me rich or famous or helped me save the world yet. So, perhaps social media be just a placating opiate like Orwell or Brandbury predicted after all. The WWW at times certainly seems to have taken television’s place as a “vast wasteland,” but its all in how you use it.