Social media has made me less social at times.
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There was a movie I watched recently called Someone Like You. I’m a sap for movies with Hugh Jackman in them, minus Real Steel. It came out in 2001 which currently was 11 years ago. There’s a point in the movie when the girl in the movie (Ashley Judd) is waiting around her house waiting for someone to call her house phone.
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That sounds ridiculously foreign now with people texting more than calling and people like my parents completely removing a land line in their home because they never use it anymore. Their first phone line was a “party-line”. (If you don’t know what that is then click the word.)
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Times have indeed changed.
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I sometimes long for the simpler days of media, when it was less social and phones weren’t attached to our hips. So what am I doing about it? Well I’m simplifying how social my media is through my newly instituted analog nights and cutting things down to socially interacting in a few place online because really It’s getting tiring to talk to my friends on so many different platforms.
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How often do you use the social platforms that you surround yourself with? Do I really need to sign up for a membership to every web-site out there? No. I do not, nor do you.
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My best suggestion is to take what social media you use the most and well use it, but for all the others forget it. Will you use Google plus? If not, then don’t sign up. My parents asked me recently whether they should get a Twitter, I told them probably not. Not because I make decisions for my parents, but rather… do they need it?
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There’s a quote that runs around in my head when I think about the multiplicity of social media:
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Everything is permissible, but not everything is necessary.
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So do we really need any of this new media? NO!
But is it helpful? Yes, and no.
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Do I need an app on my phone that lets me paint cats into pictures? Possibly.
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So do as I’ve done, pick the social media/ new media that floats your boat. Not everyone needs a Pinterest account, including me.
So if you feel like being social with me, check me out where I live on the internet at the links out to the side, but honestly don’t be too social.
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Let’s leave the real talk for real life, and leave the cell phones in the pocket. You can tweet about it later.
