It's 4 am, the last two hours have been spent pondering the effects of social media on my personal life. The following exploration of my inner conscious (is that the right word) has thus resulted.
As an avid facebooker, who fills in the gaps with twitter, I can see the perks of social media. It's a visual opportunity to tell your story and hear the stories of others. Social media is great, but it seems to have a dark side.
I read this article: Facebook users get more than they give (the article was bad, but it was interesting to think about the effects of facebook and social media on real life experiences). One quote that was profound was when they talked about how facebook makes you feel good in ways that real life doesn't when it comes to socialization.
Hmm...intriguing, so my social media thought process began.
Why I Use Social Media:
-I love stories, I love telling stories, and I especially love hearing peoples tell stories about themselves and their lives.
-Connection with people who live far away
-An augmentation of the face-to-face social relationships I have with friends
-It's an opportunity to openly be myself in a written method
-Face-to-face socialization has always been difficult, social media makes socialization easy
I also use social media for other reasons. To put it plainly, when it comes to socializing. I'm an idiot, mostly because it is not an instinctual process, but an intellectual process. I don't understand the nuances and boundaries of socializing. Facebook/Twitter make the boundary issue less of one. You can broadcast something and if someone doesn't want to see it or hear it, they can ignore it and it doesn't suck for you. (well, it does when no one responds, but that's a different issue).
But, there is a dark side. I've been thinking about the dark side to social media lately, which has almost increased the appeal and desire to use it even more.
A Personal dark side example: The Facebook Status Invite
This evening, I broadcast an invite across social media to socialize. I actually hesitated before doing so, but my shaky confidence concluded that it may be a great idea.
As a result, I posted an impersonal invite and found the response to not yield my desired results (or perhaps it has, my phone just hasn't had service), which I totally expected, because before I posted it, I thought about my reaction to other people posting those same things. Usually, when I see an invite, I feel as if because it is not a personal request that the invite does not apply to me and I do not want to feel foolish for responding and then discovering that my company was not desired.
My personal reason for posting this status invite was actually for a reason opposite of why I don't respond to postings like this. I posted it because I felt too shy to ask people directly to participate with me because I did not want to bother anyone in case my company was not desired.
INTERESTING...
I wonder if others have a similar train of thought when they see general invites to people via statuses and it looks like taking the easy way out actually lands you somewhere worse than where you started off in the first place.
I'll write more on this another time, but I've found that for someone like me who is very shy in face-to-face situations, that social media is a good opportunity to become comfortable expressing inner thoughts with people I see face-to-face. Lately, I think I've been relying on it too much. I get bored and find it too easy to turn to writing a status update or tweet to curb boredom and facilitate social interaction, yet find that it does not gratify that need and reduces my encouragement and drive to personally seek out someone that I wish to socialize with.
Hmm...more to ponder later. ZzzzzzzZzzzz
