A Baby Boomer Defends Benefits Of Social Media

There are many people out there that love social media, i.e. Facebook.  Many, many, many, many people.  Why then do I always seem to meet people (mostly fellow baby boomers)  who put this new fangled technology down?

There’s two ways of looking at everything (glass half empty, glass half full argument).  In the case of technology it definitely applies.   I really honestly believe that social media is a fantastic way to bring people together, but you end up doing it by volume.  It’s is quantity vs quality, I agree.  You can’t have a deep conversation with any one person.  But you can connect with people you would not normally talk to AT ALL, so isn’t that a great thing?  I have cousins that I haven’t talked to in years that now will send me a short hello and tell me what they’re doing, and vice versa.  WHAT’S WRONG WITH THAT?  Glass half full!

OK- lets look at the recent tornados in the Carolinas.  They actually used Facebook to find loved ones, and it worked It ended up being a powerful tool to locate people in a disaster.  Glass VERY full.

I could keep going here, and I will.  Look at Egypt.   You can almost totally credit social media for spreading the idea of peaceful demonstration amongst a MONSTROUS group of people very quickly.  It kept the crowd controlled yet got the point across.

And last but certainly not least, look at what it’s done to radio?  Not too long ago when we used to be on the air, we had no feedback from you, the listener except for snail mail and the telephone.   For the most part, the communication was one way.  We’d do our show, I’d sing my goofy song for the day, and maybe a week later you’d meet someone who would say “loved the bit you did last week”.  Or “hated the bit you did last week”.   Now the feedback is basically in real time.

If social media is so destructive, I’m just not seeing it if used constructively and not used so much that you’re not looking up from your screen all day.  Then that’s a problem.

Time for me to stop staring at my screen.  Whoops-excuse me.  Someone’s texting me.  (FOR REAL!!!)  It’s my son.  Isn’t this great?  Crap-he wants MONEY!!!