By definition, social networking is the act of expanding the
number of people you know by meeting your friends’ friends, and their friends,
and so on.
Social networking used to be going out for happy hour or
going to a cocktail party.
Today, social networking is so much more than, well, social
networking. Social networking gives us the ability to stay in touch with our
friends, reconnect with friends from our past, communicate with our families, expand
our business contacts, look for a job, find a date (or a spouse), make a
restaurant reservation, do our banking, hire a lawyer, “talk” to a doctor, send
a party invitation, read the daily headline news, plan a wedding, mail a
package, share our photographs, order our groceries, or learn how to do the
Harlem Shake, all from the comfort of our couch.
My earliest memories of social networking are from the 7th
grade, when my friends and I would pass notes between class periods so we could
“talk” our weekend visits, dollar movie nights, cheerleading tryouts (they
would always encourage me that I could do the cartwheel – which I never could!),
and generally lament about the woes of middle school.
One of my favorite pastimes of middle
school!
In high school, for Valentine’s Day, carnations were sold. Send a red carnation to another student,
that meant love; a white meant friendship; and pink was flirtatious. Today on Facebook there are all sorts
of ways to send virtual “gifts” of affection. I don’t think any those gifts are as meaningful to the recipient
as a real, live flower. Of course,
today’s high school students probably have no basis for comparison.
It was sometime in the early 1990’s that I got my first
email account. I loved email and spent
far too many hours of my workday sending and receiving messages with my sister,
brother and friends. No longer did
I get family news and gossip weeks later, or not at all. I didn’t even mind paying that
monthly AOL account charge (remember that?!) Today email is an “old fashion” social networking tool, at
least outside of the business world; we don’t rely it on like we used to; we
have too many other ways to communicate that are faster than email. I still love email though; I’ll
always have a soft spot for this technology.
According to Wikipedia, there are over 199 social networking
sites, and that doesn’t include dating and matchmaking sites. Some of the most popular
sites: Facebook; You Tube; Classmates.com;
iTunes; OpenTable; MySpace; EVite; LinkedIn; Skype;
Instagram; Twitter; Pinterest; Words with Friends; SnapChat; CaringBridge; FourSquare; and Tumblr. Then there’s texting, blogging, instant messaging, voice mail
and the aforementioned email. And
who doesn’t Google, Bing, Ask, and/or Yahoo? Also in the mix are about 300,000 apps for business,
education, entertainment, finance, health, fitness, sports, travel, and food. Further Internet research
(which may or may not be reliable) reveals that 87% of all American adults use
a cell phone, and 55% of those use their phone to access the Internet. 31% of adult Americans have a tablet
computer, and 26% have an e-reader.
We are wired.
I am as socially networked as most of my peers. I have a FB account, I tweet from time
to time, my Linked In account is up to date, I regularly Skype and text, I love
Pinterest, obviously I blog, I use various apps to keep organized and connected
in this busy world, and I still email with my sister, brother and a few friends. But for a while now I’ve felt as though
I’ve been spending a lot of time “networking” yet not feeling socially connected
in ways that matter to me. And then I had a disappointing electronic social
network “conversation”. Many
others have surely experienced the same type of thing. A downside to “talking”
electronically is the absence of tone of voice and the visual of body
language. One can try to be
accurate with the written word, and can backspace and delete, but without tone,
facial expression, gestures, etc., it’s easy for another to misinterpret , or
“hear” words in a way they weren’t intended to be “spoken”. The online exchange I had like this gave
me real pause, and has had me thinking about the place and purpose of social
networking in my life. So I’ve
tried to make a few changes, hopefully without imposing my needs on my socially
networked friends.
I started by making a phone call to a relative who lives far
away from me. We had a real conversation,
caught up on what was happening in our lives, and shared a few things that we
probably wouldn’t have posted on Facebook. It just felt nice.
A few weeks later I wrote a letter – on stationary with a pen! - to a high school friend I haven’t spoken
to in 23 years. We exchange
Christmas cards every year, with short update notes, but that’s been the extent
of our staying in touch. She
replied via email (email is ok with me –I love this old fashion tool!) and
shared much about her life.
It feels good to be connected with her again. And recently when I needed to pass on information to a
neighbor, I called her and we ended up having a nice chat. I could have sent her a text, but she’s
a great friend and is worthy of more than a few hastily typed words.
Next I decided I would no longer check my Facebook account
during the workday. Admittedly,
that’s been a little harder to do – or not to do! But I no longer open FB on my work computer, only on
my phone, and usually only around the lunch hour.
Finally, my ipad is on the nightstand next to my bed. It used to be the last thing I looked
at before I turned off the light to go to sleep. No more ipad in the bed! And no more looking at my cell phone as soon as I wake up in the morning ( I
wait until at least 7:30 am!).
The bottom line is I want to have more personal connections
so I’m trying to make small changes so I’ll be less networked and more social.
And now Gary and I are off to a social event where we will try to network -
Minneapolis Food and Wine Experience.
Like.
Just Sayin.’
Laurie
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