Social Media Junkies - Living on the Edge

If you spend an average of 2-3 hours or more on either Facebook or Twitter, you would be classified as a “social media junkie” in my book. The idea of letting it all hang out is not what I would consider socializing but it seems like those are the typical conversations happening on FB and Twitter. People are sharing their whereabouts, their beliefs, their dirty laundry, their work frustrations, their love lives, etc. I doubt if there is anything that is out of bounds anymore. Nobody is being policed and I doubt if there are any ground rules. 

I remember, not so long ago, people feeling so liberated when they found a way of being able to anonymously post all those bizarre, tasteless, sometimes downright nasty comments on bulletin boards. However the new social media communities and technologies seem to be taking this art to a whole new level. They’ve made the activity of posting messages into something cool, edgy, and sophisticated. You can now dish out junk in a highly tasteful manner with emoticons, images, artwork, music, fancy fonts, weird sounds, etc. The new social media has created an environment that I seriously feel encourages and dares the users to show their true colors. Social media seems to have opened the floodgate for people where they do not need to hold anything back.

Conversations typically tend to fall in one of the two categories – frivolous and personal. I am thinking of this or that, I was here or there, I did this or that, I hate this or that, etc, etc. I am going to use the famous Pareto’s 80-20 rule over here – In terms of quality, 80% of the conversations occurring on FB and Twitter are nothing but e-waste; 20% could be classified as meaningful, thoughtful conversations. In terms of quantity, once again 80% of the time spent by users at these social forums translates to nothing of value; 20% could be classified as valuable. Like we did not have enough ways to kill (i.e. waste) our time, FB and Twitter have added more convenient ways to do that. You can do it from your computer, you can do it from your smart phone, you can now do it from your LCD/LED TV sets, and pretty soon there will be technology inside your car where you will be able to do all this hands-free.

Now before you jump all over me remember I did say that 20% of these online social communities can add value and are adding value. It’s just the other 80% that I worry about - I hope people realize the consequences of their actions. Considering that every word a user types gets saved for eternity and that companies are seeking out information available online for professional hiring and civil/criminal litigation purposes, these social junkies are literally “living on the edge”. More worrisome is the rising trend of young kids and teenagers getting online and not being smart enough to realize how some of their online postings and rants could come to haunt them down the line.

I am all for social media but I think it is high time for socially responsible media. I am not saying that we need to compromise on our constitutional rights but there needs to be more scientific and objective vetting of the long terms risks and ramifications of social media. Not sure if it is the FCC or the Judiciary that needs to step in but some federal and/or regulatory body does need to get ahead of all this and invest in assessing the risks and putting mitigating controls in place. Freedom is not free and that applies to the social media as well.

As always, I welcome your rants and raves on my thoughts.

Comments

[Uday Kumar]

Here is a comment from a Kazira-blog reader:

Uday,

How've you been?
I happened to see your blog on the LinkedIn Update, so I read it, and wanted to let you know how your write-up was dead-on!
I totally agree with your assessment of how Twitter & Facebook are being used (80% mundane/20% useful), and it was well-written too.
Unfortunately, beauty is in the eye of the beholder (in this case user), and I think 80% of users (esp youth & female user base) would consider this stuff very relevant and useful in their daily lives! :-) (not me, of course!) I certainly would agree with your contrarian viewpoint on usage, and definitely agree that people should be careful about too much bad publicity and exposure.

Cheers,
-Sushant