Social media is the pen pal of communications

I profess to have this inside scoop on social media.  Yet how can I be?  Especially, since I work full time and was launched among the sweat and tears of looking for work, five years ago.  (Yawn, you've heard it before:  it all started on Linked In where I met Sandy who guided me into Twitter, graciously introduced me to people on the clicking edge of social media.  The rest of us were soon to be groupies, drooling at the incredible talent this world we live in together is so talented!!  

Aren't we all so lucky that we don't have to rely on our TVs, newspapers, magazines, radio any more.  Well, certainly, we are an information consumption oriented folk who may eventually be considered the early adopters.  Long long after the visionaries sat around a library table, having a few beers together, deciding to join forces to prove a point to the rest of the world.  Passing notes is not disruptive, bad behavior is rarely found among day dreamers,

Yet, what is this world it has become?  You can't get into trouble for passing notes (unless you are Donald Trump, or a raging has been star), because there is this BIG THING called social media.  Where you can speak your mind, share what you know, share what you love, share what you consume, want to consume, whether anyone is listening really.  Well, at the start anyhow.

That is at its core:  it thumbs its nose at conventional discipline for doing what others perhaps expect you to do or be.  Good things happen to great people is its mantra.  Why there are people that become overnight sensational storytellers, photographers, authors, writers, historians, foodies, models, lonely hearts clubbers retired from the frump frumping of the you should be out doing something beat.  

Embarrassingly, there others that take to airing dirty laundry, opinionated beyond reason because they aren't being held to question .... often.  There are some that may have some fame, notoriety who won't settle to being a small number .... they want to have a very BIG ..... numbers represented by followers.

Heavens, a young lad in the middle of nowhere to most people (until the world finances crumble remembered its name) Canada, to get young tweens (pre-teen 9-12 year old) girls hearts to tremble with love and adoration, who could go off and actually achieve fame and fortune, if not always good.

It is a place where so many can share one shadey association by saying or doing some stupid things that can get you minimally laughed at, smirked about, quoted, replayed, rewritten, if not quietened to the hummmm and tsk tsk of a once adoring audience or group.


Social media has created a revolution of expression, artistry, music, events, global proximity that has never been seen before.  Imagine ... in just a few years, our kids will site library visits as a mandatory curriculum field trip, like we used to visit museums in our time.  

The most notable are honorees immersed and embraced by every form of traditional medias who are feeling overwhelmed driven into survival mode, clambering for funnel of advertising revenues that are being distracted elsewhere.  

 As a study on millinial short attention spanners dropping their parents methods of obtaining news.  Where anything called Daily news, Daily mirror, Daily anything falls into the background of THE NOISE.  The noise is created by individual people of all ages, all cultures, all races, all types of family dynamics, domestic arrangements, from the learning to the learned are the ones who matter now.  They can decide what is important by creating #hashtags that catch on like fire, drowning out some of the noise we need to hear on health, economy, poverty, bullying, violence.  

Are we creating a world that we are creating our own robotic existence?  Do we only pay attention to those that think the way we do.  Where the heck did guru come from?  Do we open our empathy or does it increase our apathy.  The scientists, not typically known for gregarious characteristics, may be drowned out by dishonesty, falsehood, scams, SPAM, and the loudest of all:  PICK me, SELL me.

Like children with a gift packaged in a gigantic box, we are only playing with the box:  the computer, and rapidly being overtaken by smart phones.  The complicated and cumbersome are being tossed for the aesthetic more pleasing, better working, customized, following partner that goes everything, asking for so little:  just read, like, share, write, communicate, post, blog that it has to give you.  So portable, easy to access, quick, painful, joyful or hopeful these little instruments allow us to read, look, watch, admire, visualize whatever we love.

Like masters, our behavior lends the devices our respect, finances, images, opinions, hearts, needs, and lessening humility.  

The real geniuses of social media are the ones that use it as a tool to communicate, teach, share, inspire, motivate others to want to be better.  Not just hope to be better.  We only get better when we interact with others.  The fact that we have such a great opportunity to gravitate towards those that tend to share our own ideals, visions, outlook, positions on important matters, or less important matters.   

Has an elementary child ever heard of the term of PEN PAL?  

Does anyone really have to wait for a music CD to hit a retail store anymore?  With iTunes, Spotify and the whole she-bang, their kids will never have heard of half of the things we have now?  How about a wallet (there's an APP for that), an album (you download a song, not an album, you silly), or wondering when their favorite author will publish their next novel (oh dear, um, sorry if you don't read from your smartphone or tablet).

How many of us have the anti-social in our lives?  The ones who have discovered a text message (sms) is far quicker than an email, haven't quite caught on to an all persons in persons meeting without having to spring for flights, or hotels, or airport parking to join with their colleagues for an immediate and important conversation virtually personal appearances by all with 100% attendance.  The ones on a teleconference call are the cousins to the emailers.  

In all of this midst, it is confounding the advertising gurus and disgruntling the brands who want to be captured, not optionally, viewed or read.

Well, one thing is certain and obvious to me.  We're all adapting together and trying to draw in the outsiders and refusers to get on board.  A key board that is.