Putting social media on hold for a while…

Yup you read right! For the next two weeks, I’m going on a little social media fasting. The timing could never be as perfect as this week when we celebrate Thanksgiving. Let me go into a little (long) explanation as to why I’m doing this…

So back when I was a little guy, if I wanted to go out and play with my friends, I would run up the street, knock on the their door and ask their mom if they could come out and play. Simple as that right? If they didn’t, well, then I’d just walk back home or see if any other kids in the neighborhood were out playing and join them. Then right around junior high or high school, it became a little more difficult. Friends were a little more spread out across town and that meant calling them up, first seeing if they were home, then seeing if they wanted to hang out, and eventually making the trek via foot, bike, or ride via some parental unit over to their house. If they weren’t home, that was that, no questions asked. Then towards the end of high school and beginning of college, this awesome gadget called the pager was made available and not just to doctors and lawyers. Now we could page our friends and amazingly they would call right back (“Yeah did someone page me?”) and we can chat on the phone to see where the next party was going to be at or where we were going to hang out. And I know you know what all came next. Yup, the cell phone! Wow, you mean I can talk to someone while in my car looking cool like Zach Morris? Wait you mean they have portable ones that can fit in the pocket of my baggy jeans?!?! That was just plain cool. Now my college buddies and I could get in touch with each other anytime to find out where the action was gonna be. Nothing could get better than this!! Oh wait, there’s texting…

Fast forward through the years as the internet was born and progressing at a ridiculous rate, past AOL chat rooms, past IRC, and college BBSs this crazy thing called social media evolved. The first hit was MySpace. Come on, you know you were on it. This was the place to connect with old friends, or to just see what happen to all the cool people from high school. And then this competing site called Friendster popped up. It was a lot nicer and cleaner! No more ugly flashy animated GIFs and horribly designed MySpace pages that would crash your web browser. And it wasn’t where all the people that just wanted to “hook up” hung out. You could actually meet nice people there. Then all the way coming out of left field this small little site called Facebook, that was predominantly made for college kids, became insanely popular. Like, as in, major companies are now advertising their Facebook page on their TV commercials! Everybody is connecting with people they haven’t seen or talked to in years, even decades. They’re finding family relatives they’ve never met! Parents (yes, mine too!) are joining this social media revolution because it connects us all with this giant spider web of family, friends, relatives, mutual friends, pasts, presents, and even futures!

And then there’s Twitter. Micro-blogging at its finest. It’s even simpler than Facebook. No need to setup a fancy profile. You could follow who you’d like to read their status updates and people could choose to follow you and keep up with your updates.

At any second, hour, minute at any day in our life, we could see what was going on with whoever was on our “Friends” list and maybe, just maybe care for that split second. Now don’t get me wrong, there are occasions when status updates are appropriate and we should really really care. Like a friend’s loved one passing away, a birth of a new child, a family member whose cancer treatments are making things a little more painful, or even just a simple prayer request. These are people sharing their heartfelt and genuine emotions to their “Friends”. And then there are the status updates you wish you never read or the ones where you just think to yourself or even out loud, “WTF?!?! Do I really need to know this?”

Anyways, what I’m really getting at is, I’ve noticed ever since this social media phenomenon began, I’ve lost some real, and genuine friendships. Seriously. Why? Because I can see everything I need to know about them on the web, what they did this weekend, where they went on vacation, video highlights from their kid’s soccer games. You name it, it’s all there. And vice versa. I’m just as guilty of it!! No longer do I need to call them to see how things are going, or even wish them happy birthday! Heck, I can do it on Facebook or Twitter!

So if you’ve made it this far, I thank you for your genuineness and taking the time to read this. For the next two weeks, I will be fasting from Facebook and Twitter to reconnect with friends and disconnect myself from our society’s need of nanosecond instant gratification and knowing anything and everything all from our computer or within the palm of your hand. I think this Thanksgiving holiday is the perfect time. Friends from afar are coming back home to visit families, work is a little bit slower which lends to a little time to connect with old friends and even family members. On top of all that, it gives me even more time to spend with my wife and children!

I actually encourage you, my blog reading friends, to do the same. Facebook and Twitter will still be there after a few weeks, I can almost guarantee it! Now I know I’ll probably get mixed reactions about my thoughts on this. Especially from my photographer friends. We add or follow each other even though some of us have never even met! Well it is my goal to have a genuine conversation with those who I am already friends with or are following me. If I don’t, then does that mean we’re still friends? Sure for the sake of community, but there can’t be a community unless you have something to bring to the potluck. Believe it or not, EVERYONE has something to bring to the table! Regardless, I do hope that we have a chance to connect. This goes for future friends who request/follow me or those who I request/follow. From here on out, there needs to be some reason for us to connect, right? Other than just being someone in the industry who feels we should be “friends” for the sake of increasing our “friend” count!

If you agree or even disagree, leave me a comment below. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this! Because that’s at least start in connecting and growing as a community…

Oh and obviously, you can’t reach me via Facebook or Twitter until December 7th, but you can reach me via email. It’s up on the very top of my site. Or dare I say, you can even reach me via the phone! Number is up above too!

This entry was posted on Monday, November 23rd, 2009 at 10:00 am. It is filed under For Creatives, My Life and tagged with Facebook, For Photographers, Personal, Social Networking, Twitter. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.