Social media rant-and-a-half

A few years ago, my idiot boyfriend and I were discussing books. I said, "Are you going to read the Da Vinci Code?" He said, "No." I asked him why not, since I thought the subject matter in the book would be something he would be particularly interested in. He said, "Because everybody else is reading it."

What a stupid reason for not reading a book that was garnering a lot of praise and/or discussion from a lot of really smart and socially conscious people. I found his reaction to be completely and utterly contrived, small-minded and like he was trying a little too hard to be derisive.

A close friend of mine has a habit of writing things off as being "not his thing" without really spending much time first opening his mind to the possibility. It's just "It's not my thing. End of discussion. NO SOUP FOR YOU." If something is "not his thing," there is absolutely no changing his mind about it.

The reason I've penned this slighlty winding preamble is because of a column I read in the paper a few days ago. An editorial piece about social media.

Social media is my current pet project. I want to know and understand everything about it. I subscribe to numerous blogs that discuss social media at great length. I jumped on the train a little too late, however, and am having a hard time catching up... but I am trying to be open-minded and to grow and flex in this ever-evolving society I live in.

It is hard to grasp the far reach of social networking tools and how they have factored so importantly into the business world. So we're clear - yes, I'm still just a copywriter. But even though I'm not a "businessperson" per se, I DO work in the business world, so this does affect me. It probably affects you. It affects the majority of people who work in or alongside some kind of business, whether that business is oil drilling or homemade sausage-making.

So I saw this editorial about social media and, due to the fact that it's a topic about which I am rabid for information, it jumped out at me. "Goody!" I thought. "Maybe this columnist can explain in concise terms what the technical and marketing bloggers have failed to teach me!"

Unfortunately, this columnist belonged to the "not my thing" crowd. She was deriding social media. She regurgitated what countless other close-minded people have said before her: Nobody wants to know what I had for lunch. I don't want to share my personal information with the world. I'm too busy to Tweet.

I just feel like I need to call her out, and anyone else who remains utterly close-minded to the fact that we as humans are continually evolving. And yes, I do consider the development of the social media movement to be a part of the modern-day evolution of our species. Et tu?

"Nobody wants to know what I had for lunch."
Yes they do. Figuratively speaking. Your patrami on rye is a metaphor for interesting bits of information that you have available to share, that someone somewhere wants to read. If you're using Twitter to actually share your lunch selection with the world, a) you need to work on your self-editing skills, and b) you're probably among the percentage of users who are unclear on the concept of how Twitter can be/should be used. In other words: Ur doin' it rong.

Don't ask me to explain the right way to use Twitter, because I'm still learning; I'm working my way into the percentage of peeps who use it "correctly." For the moment, the "incorrect" Tweeters make up the majority. Eventually the lunch-menu people will stop using Twitter or maybe close their accounts altogether, and Twitter and the like will become a repository for important and valuable information across a variety of topics. As an example, maybe someday CNN.com's huge info-filled web page will become obsolete, and everyone will just subscribe to CNN's Twitter feed to get their news. Or maybe websites as we know them will evolve to look more like just short bursts of info, like a Tweet. Hard to say. This is just a very small idea of the sort of evolution we might see in the not-too-distant future.

But what I'm geting at here is if you use social media the right way, in a busines-communication and/or education/opinion/point-of-view-sharing sort of way, then yes... people will want to read it. Info-sharing is changing. Accept that.

"I don't want to share personal information with the world."
I'd say that I belong to a pretty transitional generation, in terms of technology stuff. A lot of people my age have not warmed up to technology and are content to fall behind the curve - which is funny, since I think we were kind of the young upstarts that were really in the thick of things when the Internet was born. I still know people who don't have cell phones, people who won't send text messages, people who would prefer to come to my desk to have a conversation (which I'll promptly forget) than to send me an email (which I can keep and reference easily whenever I need to). Many of us are embracing the way technology is heading. Many are not.

Great news if you've fallen behind the curve: it's not too late to catch up. But you have to come to grips with what the rest of us have come to realize: yes, you do want to have your personal stuff out there. If you don't have a Twitter account, a Facebook account and a LinkedIn account - at the bare minimum - you don't even exist in social media terms. And in the modern business environment, your lack of social media existence may be viewed as a shortcoming. You're not keyed in to the way info is shared.

Some jobs exist outside of the "business world." The people I've referenced in this blog post include a soldier, a school teacher and a newspaper columnist. These people don't really work in the business world (although any columnist worth her weight in salt should jump on every and any communication bandwagon that exists, even if it is just to share her lunch menu). These people can probably afford to continue being oblivious to how the business world works for a little while longer.

So fine. Don't embrace social media for yourself. But when you make the sweeping generalization that it is , right across the board, an unimportant and silly fad, you're speaking out of turn on a topic you know nothing about. And you are wrong.

The thing about this column that got me shaking my head was that the writer tried to spin it like the Social Media Set were the wacky ones, like we were wrong for being a part of this. It bothers me, I guess, when people try to argue topics they don't fully grasp. A technologically close-minded person should just mind their own business, and not write an opinion piece on technology.

"I'm too busy to Tweet."
Ah, the familiar call of the self-important...

Listen, I will admit it up front: I read anywhere for 5 to 20 blog entries a day on the topic of social media, and I still don't get it. Because of this, I haven't been able to screw up the courage to log into my Twitter account in months, because I'm not sure how to do it "properly" yet. Lots of people don't get it. It's okay to not get it.

People who don't want to admit that they're being left behind the technology curve will often use the "I don't have time for it" excuse.

Nobody has to justify why they don't take part in social media - just as I shouldn't need to justify why I *am* (trying to be) a part of it. It's okay if you don't understand how it all works or why it has become so huge. I guess what this column really stirred up in me is the notion that you're being very ignorant if you are going to go out of your way to poo-poo social media like it's some kind of passing fancy. It might not be important to you, but that doesn't mean it's not important. Rather than using your energy to announce and proclaim why you're better than social media, either try to embrace it and learn about it, or just carry on ignoring it.