Social Media... Is it Ruling Your Life?

How many times within a 24 hour period do you check Facebook?   Tweet something?  View your linked in profile?  Check in somewhere using foursquare?  What other social sites are you using on a regular basis? 

Sitting here, I am trying to remember back to a time when there was no facebook, no twitter, no linkedin, no four square, no google buzz.... none of the social media that has the world wrapped in a warm embrace.      How did we spend all the minutes... sometimes hours that we now devote to these vehicles?   Social media... is it ruling your life?  As I was trying to determine what to blog about this week, it crossed my mind, that I may be guilty as well.   Before I sat down to write... I found myself checking all of my own social media sites.  The thought occurred to me and I began to think about how often I am on all of them... and what did I do before all of these came along?    

With the latest advances that our cellular devices and networks are providing we are now more connected than ever before.   Every day, more technologies are coming out... it will only get more involved.   I tried to think about the advantages and disadvantages of being so addicted to all of these.  Is addicted the right term?    Its kinda like when cell phones first came out or for me,  when I got my first blackberry.... I was immediately known as a "crackberry" because I was the person who definitely checked emails and texted during dinners, lunches, meetings and all of the between.   In my own defense and mindset... I thought I was being productive.  I couldn't help myself.  It dinged ... and I would feel compelled to check it and answer.

 There came a time when my two grown children threw an INTERVENTION and the crackberry had to stop... especially when I was with them.  It was then, that I realized how absorbed I had become... okay, I was addicted.  Very addicted.  So I began the process of breaking myself away... so that I would only check emails at intervals and that at night, I would set it aside for several hours.    Just when I thought I had broken myself... of being SO addicted to it - WHAM... social media comes along and here we go again.  Social media gives us justified reasons that we are all spending countless minutes and hours on our cell phones, ipads, computers, smartphones.... basically anything that has access to the internet or is it justified.   The only thing to offset my addictive behaviour now... is that the world around me all seem to be caught up into it. 

Can you remember the first time you logged into a social media site?  If you were like me... you were like a fish out of water, afterall, most of the social sites at the time were targeting high school and college age.  Once getting on and learning the navigation and trying to understand the whole purpose...my whole attitude changed.  I didn't feel so inferior anymore, I wanted to learn more about it.  Personally,   I think social media has a lot of positives.   On facebook, my friend list is a mixture of family, friends, colleagues and friends that I had in high school or college that I am now re-connecting and enjoying seeing where they ended up in life.   Its a way to share photos and updates with all of those on my friend list at one time.   It's also a way to be kept abreast of what's happening around me.   Every morning, I can log on to facebook at any given time... and find out some news.   Facebook is like a revolving door.. and its always entertaining but a lot of times it can be informative.  Out of all of the sites, I use it the most and its really the more personal of the ones that I use.   Secondly, I use LinkedIn where I connect with all of my professional friends and colleages.  You can also browse the various groups, read interesting discussions, see what jobs are open, and yes, share status updates on it as well.  Lastly, I do tweet as well.   When tweeting, its usually something really specific as I do not have all of my accounts on social media intertwined.   I have different sets of friends on each, although some do cross over to all three.  Arent they LUCKY friends to be that connected to me?    One of the other hot ones is foursquare, but I haven't completely dived in to that one yet.   I do have a profile and login.   I have many friends who use it and are "mayors" of various venues.   I think I have only checked in to one place thus far... but I've been getting a lot of encouragement to get on board with it!   So... who knows... in time... maybe I will conquer it as well.
  
Social media... has changed not only our personal lives, but also our businesses.   Companies are creating budgets to implement social media as part of their overall marketing program.  They are now hiring specific positions to develop, create, implement and execute a complete social media launch.  Nowadays, there are more than 100 plus job titles related to this phenomen.  Why?   Instant gratification.  On any of the social sites, you can tweet a message and instantly have it read by the masses -- provided you've done your homework and have a good following.   Same on facebook, you can create a company page and instantly have your information and provide updates to large groups.... you can post a status... it goes out to all your friends and you can even request that they forward it to their friends... and so on.   On linked in... in the group discussions, you can post a relevant topic or pose a question to colleagues...and you have access to answers from your peers.   Not all of us are "social media gurus".  We're adapting and learning as we go, but IF we are open to the idea of using it, eventually, we can become adept at using it.  I think thats part of the evolution.  Social media is changing the way we all do business.   It's changing the way we communicate... 120 plus characters at a time in most posts.    

It's a marketer's DREAM, as I've been told often over the last several years.   But... at the same time... when you think about how much time we are spending on various sites... is it ruling our lives to the point where we lose sight of what's really important.  The things in life that truly add value to it.  I gave this some thought... and my personal answer is... I don't think we have changed the things we used to do... I believe we are now allowing ourselves to share what we are doing with all of friends or connections.  I believe we are all much more open to sharing than we were in the past.  We are sharing our lives openly and willingly.   I think that it is up to each of us as an individual  to be acccountable and understand the balance of time that we allocate to social media so that it doesn't rule our lives.   There were several articles written, one in particular by Reuters on how being "so" connected can create undue stress, create sleep loss, and even in some cases weaken personal relationsihps.  The article did a study of college students where they blacked out the sites for a week... can you imagine THAT withdrawal?   But... after giving it some serious thought, maybe, that's a lesson for all of us... just to take a step back every now and then... so that we don't get so caught up in it and we remind ourselves that there is a big ole' world out there whether we choose to read a great book, see a movie, enjoy a play, dinner or just spend times with those we love.   And... then after taking the break... we'll have something new to put on all our posts.

Social media doesn't have a hall monitor.   It's up to us... to develop our own checks and balances so that it doesn't rule us.  It can be an engaging way for all of us to connect whether on a personal or professional basis.  At the same time... we also need to take a deep breath and every now and then step back for a few hours or days.  Maybe a week?

Is it a fad?  I don't know the answer for sure...but, I think it will be around a long time.  I think more sites will be developed and as we continue to learn to use them, both personally and professionally, we will gain more insight and knowledge on how to be responsible with them.  

Even in the world of blogging, social media is making it easier to get your thoughts into the hands, hearts and heads of others.  Today, I am going to post my blog and link it to all of my sites... facebook, twitter and linked in and invite all of you to follow me on twitter@jenrobinson09,  become my friend on facebook, or connect with me on linked in and even... foursquare.    

Happy Tweeting, Updating, Checking in and Posting!