“I’m a loser. I just talk to my friends face to face.” That is always my coworker’s response whenever we give him grief for not being on Facebook. He believes it’s too impersonal and that there are better ways to stay connected with friends. Back in his day, when Plutowas still a planet, people would talk on the phone, hit the bar for happy hour, or kick it on the weekend to keep in touch with one another. Nowadays people stalk newsfeeds to stay abreast of what’s happening in everyone’s lives. Conventional wisdom would call that antisocial.
Is it really though? Consider what the new social norm has become. As of August 2011, 750,000,000 people have Facebook accounts, 200,000,000 use Twitter, 125,000,000 maintain MySpace pages, and 100,000,000 have profiles on LinkedIn. On average, more than 15,000,000 wall posts, 2,700,000 photo uploads, and 10,000,000 comments occur every 20 minutes. That’s not just with Generation Y; social network usage increased 86 percent among baby roomers between April 2009 and May 2010. 40,000,000 adults in the US alone use online dating services. One in every five couples who meet online eventually marries. School districts now offer online courses for children in grades K-12. Even Elmo has a YouTube channel!
It may be weird. It may be different from what we were accustomed to when we were younger, but it has become the new standard. Web 2.0 users who live their lives via their avatars and on their tablets are the new norm; those who don’t are now guilty of being antisocial.
I find it interesting to note how social media can be a large source of serious social drama. Breakups, feuds between friends, and all kinds of different real world dramas erupt over things seen on social media sites. Is this something that always happened but injured parties never found out because insults weren't posted online ready to copy and paste? Maybe there are new privacy settings to solve this on the way - imagine being able to shield yourself from criticism, ha.
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