Social Media: An Means to an End, or an End in Itself?

This is a question that I've often wondered. Is social media a means towards connecting individuals with each other with the goal of creating social interaction in a real space later, or is it the interaction itself?

I think everyone has been out when they look at see a group of people standing together, all on their cell phones. Has social media eclipsed real life interaction?

Surely there are instance where social media does serve that purpose. When I was in University I met tons of exchange students, or roomates that have simply moved far away, that I wouldn't be able to remain in contact with without social media. Social media becomes the medium of interaction, but when we are together, we always try to get together in person.

There are a lot of studies being connected now that are linking excessive social media use and depression. It's interested that although we now live in the Global Village envisioned by Marshall McLuhan, sometimes we forget about the village.

In Edmund Carpenter's "Oh What A Blow that Phantom Gave Me" he talked about the idea of "Media Withdrawl". He tells this as an example:

"Recently at a U.S. Army base in Germany, the commanding officer attributed the high divorce rate among his troops to the lack of English-language TV. 'That means a soldier and his wife have got to talk to each other in the evenings, and suddenly they discover that they don't like each other'".

That is from a book that was written in 1972.

As a digital media strategist, I work and research new technology constantly. However, I've always seen social media as a means to an end. Often when I talk to clients, the goal of their campaigns is to get people into their office for a real visit. Many of my biggest revelations come from sitting down and having a coffee with someone. While we can find all of the information we will ever need online, nothing can replace human interaction.

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If you liked this post, you might like some of my other posts like Anything is Possible, Your Living Legacy, What would my life be like without the internet?, and more.

What would my life be like without the internet?

On this rainy day, I’m sitting inside, incredibly frustrated because my internet has slowed to an unending crawl. We are talking worse than dial up. I can’t believe how frustrating it is to not be able to send the documents and the replies that I need to send to various people. To check to see what is going on through social media with my friends and family. What kinds of events are happening around the world, and what the latest viral videos are? And trust me, I know this all sounds reminiscent of the Louis C.K. "Everything's amazing and nobody's happy" bit.

It’s crazy to think that, even when I was a little kid, all of this didn’t exist. I find it fascinating, that what I do, digital strategy, is to assist with making something that didn’t exist even twenty years ago, run better.

I come from a long line of blacksmiths on one side of my family. After three generations of blacksmiths, came my papa who was a farmer. On the other side was my Zedi, a small business owner who operated a travel shop, selling luggage. These were real things. Some of my blacksmith ancestors were left handed, and actually crafted their own tools to be able to do their jobs. I can’t imagine sitting down with these guys and explaining to them what I do. “So, basically I try to make this thing that didn’t exist in your time run better?”. There have been ton’s of momentary jobs over time; think about the fax fixers, the MySpace moguls, the RIM employ….. ok maybe that last one is a little premature. However, all of these jobs were valuable at the time, and the skills are transferable to other things.

One aspect that I find incredibly fascinating is the fleeting nature of what I do. In order to do my job well, I split my time between working on projects, and researching the latest advancements in technology. It is incredibly hard to stay up date because things are constantly changing with social media, and best practices.

Keeping this in mind, it’s fascinating to see how even in a year’s time, what I spent so much time working on and researching can be out of date. Even the best websites need to be redone in three year’s time, maybe even sooner. Looking at social media plans and strategy, you’ll be lucky if it’s relevant in a year. However, at the time, it worked. It did was it was supposed to do. There won’t be any tools left from my job that one day my great, great, great, great, great grandchildren will find and wonder about. Technology changes so fast, I’ll be lucky if they can even access what I’ve spent so much of life at. However, that doesn’t mean I would change what I am doing. Times are different now. Many of the jobs that I have had aren’t catered towards leaving a legacy. Cooking for instance, once the plate is gone, its gone. Only if you have done a really good job, but more likely a really bad one will you ever hear anything more of it. However, the skill of cooking is something that people talk about. People remember their Grandma made the best matzo ball soup (even if years later you found out it came from a box), just like how I talk about how I found the tools leftover from my blacksmith ancestors. Just because you can't hold it, doesn't make it any less real.

I often wonder what would my world be like if I slid into a parallel dimension (Sliders anyone?), where the Arpanet had never been created (the earliest known instance of the internet)? What would I do then? It’s on a day like today, as I wait for the internet to hopefully come back on so I can once again rejoin the world that I know, that I actually get the time to examine these things. I would like to say that the internet is the only thing holding me back from being the next Wayne Gretzky, however, that may not be the case.

Update: I have alas fixed my internet. To my surprise, it was actually something that I could be halfway proud of. A faulty coaxial cord seems to have been the reason, and after using wire cutters, and getting a replacement end, and destroying my entire living in the process, I am now back in business.