Comments on: What I LOVE/HATE about Social Media

By: Jeff Barr’s Blog » Links for Monday, July 19, 2010

Jeff Barr’s Blog » Links for Monday, July 19, 2010 — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 05:29:10 +0000

[...] Janet Thaler: What I LOVE/HATE about Social Media – “People are fond of saying something like this: if you’re not getting so many retweets or comments or followers on Twitter, you suck. You’re boring. You’re irreverent. This line of thinking has made me want to stop blogging and tweeting so many times. I start to judge myself by these numbers.“ [...]

By: Kevin Wunder

Kevin Wunder — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 18:31:01 +0000

Reading this post came at an interesting time for me. I’ve been thinking a lot recently about the long term effecting that social media will have in our society.

Social Media levels the playing field. I believe that a social media engaged person is privy to tremendous amounts of rich information because there are so many other influential people utilizing social media. The leveling empowers the ordinary person to do pretty extraordinary things.

By: Online PR

Online PR — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 02:31:36 +0000

Jon – thanks I might do that (the time factor). Really I have loved social media – it’s only recently that I’ve experienced the negative. I still believe in its effectiveness for businesses who have something to say and want to connect with people.

Jane (nice name) – thanks for writing. As you point out, we might feel good connecting online the way we do it could hurt our offline relationships. We can send the message that someone else is more deserving of our attention at that moment. There’s something that makes it so compelling though.

Like you, I get more out of being able to see and touch others rather than just type to each other. If I had to choose I’d choose in-person friendships though I think with care you can do both. I wish we checked our devices at the door before we walked into events or meetings or even drive.

-Janet

By: Jane Davidson

Jane Davidson — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 00:28:51 +0000

I love this! I continually ponder on how we have lost real connection with each other, and yet social media is charging ahead like a mad bull – even to the point where you see people who are supposed to be networking face to face, suddenly stop and start pounding away on their (name your device)….making them not fully present.
So I guess the question is…what is “real” connection? Can you love a Facebook mate who responds daily, or would coffee and a chat have more meaning on a psychological level?
Don’t have the questions, only the answers. Personally I love discovering old friends on Facebook, but I’ll take a hug any day.

By: Jon Jensen

Jon Jensen — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 20:14:59 +0000

Janet, I think a longer piece about social networking drawbacks would be great, especially coming from you. There are plenty of naysayers out there, but from someone do deeply involved as you are, writing about drawbacks would carry more weight, at least to me.

Thanks,
Jon

By: Online PR

Online PR — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 20:06:15 +0000

Jon,
I wrote spent a few hours writing this and it was 2am by the time I finished. I had a personal experience with #5 that still stings. So yeah, I was mad and focused on the things I hate more than what I love. Typically it’s more love than hate, just not this week.
Also, I’m going to polish this for a long piece on the drawbacks. My blog has lots about the benefits.
Thanks for the edit & for your comment.
-Janet

@Michelle – wish you were at the conference. It is so easy to compare ourselves but like Brene points out only you can choose to feel worthy (that you are enough right now how you are – with the # of Twitter followers, FB friends, etc). Tough to do but I’m focusing on that aspect. She says it’s often coming from a scarcity mentality. That has helped my perspective on this a lot. Also understanding just how deep & biological our need to connect is. Combine those 2 values (want to belong, feel there is a scarcity of people who comment, friend you, etc) and you have a big mess. I’m trying to sort it out.

-Janet

By: Jon Jensen

Jon Jensen — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 18:26:57 +0000

Hi, Janet. All good points. I can’t help but notice that the list of “hates” is longer (more descriptive) than the list of “loves”. But that could just be because it’s easier to describe the dislikes in detail, while the likes are multifaceted and ever-changing.

By the way, in hate #4 where you wrote “irreverent” I think you may’ve meant “irrelevant”.

By: Michelle McCullough

Michelle McCullough — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 04:46:26 +0000

Very interesting article! I totally agree with everything you said. And I wanted to say that I have noticed recently how few real connections I have with people because of social media and technology. It’s funny that I sometimes measure my success by the number of friends I have on facebook or my followers on twitter, but really that shouldn’t be part of it at all.

Anyway, I blabber on. It was good to see you yesterday and as I watch the tweets and blog posts about evo come in I’m even more bummed I couldn’t be there!