Social Media?

As with most folks, I am involved in Social Media. I have had Myspace and Facebook and other social sites that I have used over the years, and for the most part, I enjoyed using them. As I have gotten older, I cut back to using just one. I think the main reason is, that I have realized how valuable time actually is. I had to ask myself, "Do I really need 3 social sites and 3 profiles and 3 accounts to keep up with?" My answer was a definite, "no." Initially when social media first hit the scene, I was like everyone else. I wanted to see what the big deal was, be seen and have something to do with my time. Over the years my priorities shifted, my likes and dislikes changed and so did the things around me. Myspace was my first social network of choice.

Back when Myspace first was introduced it was a platform for networking with new people, finding old friends and making posts about average things you were doing. Not like anyone really cared, but it was still cool at the time. After a few years, I began to mess around with HTML and making custom Myspace pages. I got really good at creating these visually awesome pages that my friends would flock to see. In fact, I even had a thing where I would ask my friends to give me a theme challenge. Over night I would come up with one of their theme ideas. I made themes from Star Wars to the Muppets with raining icons, sparkles, sound and so on. It got to where people loved my pages I created so much that they began to ask me to make a custom page for them. For a couple of years I did just that. A few people got wind of it whom I didn't know and offered to PAY me for my services. It was great! I must have had over 100,000 images downloaded on my computer just FOR that purpose of making custom pages. Facebook showed up on the scene. I was not impressed. There was no way of customizing your page and making it unique and full of visual bling. I passed on subscribing to Facebook for that reason, too boring. More time passed and I found a lot of my people were disappearing. At long last, I joined Facebook and to my chagrin, my lost people were there.

I also found that a lot of my lost family members were on Facebook and had been since its inception. I was thrilled and still am to this day that I was able to finally track some of them down and start reconnecting. Growing up, I rarely got to see any of my northern cousins that were on my Dad's side of the family. 20 years went by after Grandma's funeral before I was able to actually see just one of my cousins and meet his wife. Social media has allowed me to reconnect with a lot of my family with whom I have had little contact for years. We have not seen each other in decades but we are a lot closer now thanks to social media. There is a lot of good that can come out of this type of medium and I don't think anyone will disagree with that. There also can be a lot of unnecessary junk associated though too. Breaking it down into pros and cons I would put it like this:

Pros:  Reconnecting with people

          Meeting new people with common interests

          Having that immediate notification from someone who may need something

          The ability to share important things across the country and the world in seconds

           that would otherwise take forever via snail mail or even email.

           Forums and pages available to educate you more readily

           Being able to share links to Youtube and see the videos play within your page.

Cons:  Negative people

           Drama on your page

           Content that you do not  approve of ( granted you can hide that now as an option )

            Spying factor into your personal business by others and entities

These are just a few examples but for me the good outweighs the bad. I have asked a few people in my network, who reads every single post?  I have also been asked, how do you respond to bad news people share? Do you hurriedly just click LIKE or do you take a minute to comment?  With the involving yourself in social media of any kind, there are responsibilities. You are so exposed to people's lives, intimate details, trials, victories and such that you have to gauge how to respond to them all. My general rule of thumb has served me well. If I see a comment or post that reports bad news, or illness, I take a second and post something instead of just clicking the LIKE button. I admit, I do not read every single post that is put on my page. I scan. The ones that look interesting I will look at more intently. The ones that I just want to shake my head over, I either come back to later or just ignore. Does this mean that I am insensitive? I think not. Everyone has to manage his or her time the best way they can. Some folks have the time to sit online all day and makes posts, comments and share funny things. Others do not. 

One truth that we can not ignore is that when time is gone IT IS GONE! You can never get it back. In our modern technological age, via smart phones and tablets we can easily receive and manage our emails, social media, tweets and so on in a matter of minutes or seconds. For that I am grateful. Like anyone else though, I have to keep in check, how much "time" am I taking on keeping up with everything. Time management for some is a lost cause while for others it is something they feed on and excel at. I am in the latter category. Look, I would have to say that I enjoy technology as much as the next guy, but there is something to be said for simplicity too. Take a little time and examine how much of your time could be spent elsewhere and what benefit that could afford you, then make a conscious effort to step back a bit from emails and tweets and commenting if you need to. I promise you that the world will go on just fine without you for a few hours or even a few days. I have a couple of friends who take breaks from social networking and emails for a season. During those times when they walk away from it all, or even some of it, they tend to find renewal. Renewal of mind, clarity, sense of purpose and are able to better focus on what lies ahead. Consider doing this. Like I said, friends may miss your LOL's or OMG's or smileys, but both you and they will survive. 

Thank you for taking some of your valuable time to read this blog post. I wish you well this week and until next time, check out for a few days! I just might do the same.