My relationship with social media is definitely one on a spectrum. Much like the rest of my generation, I am part of a demographic that is saturated by social media, so of course there’s no escaping it—that is unless you really try. My two main mediums of social media are what I would consider to be the two largest being Facebook and Twitter. I joined Facebook back in my 8th grade year, which would have been 2004. It was when Facebook still required an invitation from someone in your desired network, that being only high school and college, so of course I felt like a “cool kid” when a high school buddy of mine requested me. Twitter on the other hand, was a recent bandwagon move for me. I had avidly avoided it, defending the position that I didn’t care what the world had to say about what they were doing in 140 characters. But lo and behold, 3 years ago I took a communications class here that required it, and I’ve never look back. Needless to say I’m addicted to Twitter—not in the Ashton Kutcher/Demi Moore “lets-tweet-each other-from-the-other-side-of-the-room” way, but more like a stream of consciousness for my own small group of friend’s reading pleasure.
One thing that I have noticed that I find interesting is how I filter people I know between these two cites. For example, before I went on a “friends-cleanse” last week (deleting everyone who I just didn’t care about), I had somewhere in the ballpark of 700 friends. My Twitter on the other hand, has only about handpicked 40 followers. Now this wasn’t something that I set out to do, like as some secretive Twitter account, but when it comes down to what the sites main purpose is, to inform others as to what you are thinking/doing/etc. at that moment—I don’t want 700 people to know that! Too bad I’m not Lady Gaga, that’d be a different story.
So I know this young woman Natalie, she is a co-worker of mine, and she is the one that really pushed me into the blogosphere this past semester. (Here’s her blog http://ohfortheloveofblog.com/) Now I will never have a beautifully coded site like hers, (her hubby is a computer science genius and did it all himself), but I was inspired by a blog-challenge she took. It was called the 30 for 30 and what it was all about was you picked 30 items of clothing from your wardrobe, not counting accessories and undergarments, and wear only combinations of those for 1 month, documenting them for the blogworld’s enjoyment. Now while I still have yet to do the 30 for 30 (it’s just too stinkin’ hot right now), I was bold enough to create a blog on Blogspot totally devoted to myself—that’s right a video blog. (Here’s mine. http://ramblingsfromtx.blogspot.com/) Warning: It is exactly what it says it is: ramblings. Ramblings aside, I think blogs are a great way just to make your voice heard. Lately I’ve been addicted to home decor and wedding blogs, more significantly, The Knot, (http://community.theknot.com/cs/ks/blogs/wedding_style_file/default.aspx).
To sum things up, I am definitely somewhere in the middle of the road as social media goes—I can live without my Twitter but not without my Facebook; I know how to use hashtags, but don’t understand trending; I read online news, but I rarely ever comment. All in all, social media in all its forms, is a ever-evolving facet of our lives that isn’t going away any time soon…or ever.
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