Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Social Media-itis

For the last few hours as I have been creating this blog and linking it up to everything.. it hit me... we really are living in the future now. For all my students that are 20 somethings this is no big deal. They have always lived with media. Even my grand daughter has several little computers that teach her numbers and the alphabet. To her "feeding the puppy" means going on line with me and feeding my virtual pet. The world has gotten smaller or at least maybe more compartmentalized.  I am now talking to friends I knew in highschool and advising them about how to help their kids make deals in Hollywood. Perhaps what social media has done is actually brought us BACK into community. Maybe we don't know our neighbors but now our friends can be in Hong Kong and we can talk to them daily. I think its wonderful. Yes there are concerns. About privacy and video game addiction. Loss of personal interaction. But if we lose our privacy .. isn't it because we have willingly given it up. No one is forcing anyone to have a Facebook page. If there are unattractive pictures of you floating around.. well.. its not like the rest of the world hasn't seen us as we really are. I think social media may be the very thing that will get us back to talking to each other. As opposed to television which is a totally passive pastime. On Facebook and Blogs we are communicating thoughts, ideas... inane though they may be.
When I introduced my 83 year old mother to FB at Christmas.. I explained to her how it is more efficient than emails. At a glance you can see what your kids, friends,. high school chums are up to. And if you want you can comment. Recently the most fun I have had in days happened when the girls all mysteriously posted their bra colors. Just the colors. It was fun and was a reminder to us about Breast cancer. It created such an uproar CNN covered it on the news.  Silly, maybe. But a powerful example of how pervasive this social media business has gotten. Stuff to think about.

2 comments:

  1. Hi Peggy

    I must be around the same age as you, but I sense that I have a different take on life. Yes, I sometimes count back and think "Wow! is it really 47 years since I first heard the Beatles?" or "Is it really 36 years since I first came to Hong Kong [where I now live]?", or "Is it really 27 years since I bought my first PC?", but I haven't the slightest interest in social networking, which I regard as irrelevant to my life and lifestyle.

    If that makes me a dinosaur then I'm happy to admit to being a dinosaur. If that makes me out of touch with the world, then I disagree. I'm new to blogging too (I think you've made a fine start, by the way), but in my case I'm using a blog to "inform, entertain and provoke thought". Pretentious, I know, but you can check it out if you like:

    http://dennishodgson.blogspot.com/

    The 'recommended posts' on the right of the page will give you a good idea of where I'm coming from.

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  2. Dennis-- wow - my first comment not from my family!! Thank you for reading.. Actually by blogging.. isn't that social networking in a way? Anyway, I have family members that would completely agree with you! 47 years since we first heard the Beatles?? Yikes we are close to the same age! I look forward to reading your blog!

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