Hm. And that is all I have to say about that.
Social Media has so many benefits to our social and professional lives. It can turn a high school buddy that lives on the other coast into a neighbor. I’ve watched baseball games with my friend in Boston. I can share photos from last night’s party as if 100 of my closest friends were sitting in my kitchen.
Facebook has become the easiest way to rally my neighborhood association. I think it is ironic that I chat with the guy across the street on Facebook chat instead of just walking down the stairs. I’ve spent Friday nights at my kitchen table with a bottle of wine and PINGFM and had a great time.
The internet allows the public to control what they are exposed to. People no longer respond to mailers and radio commercials, they go to Google to get their needs met, and completely block out all the 100s and 1000s of messages that are pointed at them every day.
This is the reason that I only use MySpace to catch up with my 13 year old step brother in Austin. I get friend requests from porn shops. My Profile has been accessed 3 times and I have, unbeknownst to me, left drug trafficking comments on my friend’s profiles. The profiles load so slowly because of all the HYPE…
There’s a reason I have a profile on Facebook. When I accept a person as a friend or follower, I “opt in” to find out what parties they are going to, if they are single this week, and how their weekend went. I like to be reminded that it’s their birthday.
What I DON’T like is all the annoying little notifications. “Someone looked at you on Sparkey.” “Matt sent you a BEER!” “Fiona gave you a Purple Myrtle plant.” “You have a flirt on Zoosk.” Zoosk must be where all the guys that get banned from Yahoo Personals go. Have you noticed that some applications open in the same window and dump you into page of spam? And someone PLEASE tell me how sending a boat load of virtual Day Lillies will reduce my carbon footprint.
The bottom line is that we are programmed to ignore 100s of 1000s of media messages every single day. If social networking becomes part of that, we will all have to go back to hanging out on our front porches. Not that that would be terrible.
