OK, I'll admit it: I am on way too many social media Web sites: Facebook, LinkedIn, MyRagan, MySpace (totally joined for a work project, honest...but stayed of my own volition), Blogspot, and now Twitter.
I've made Wikis and podcasts and have fought to implement them in the workplace in a couple of positions I've had.
However, I appreciate the delicacy of the issue. I get into debates about social media in personal and professional capacities (mainly at work and with my mother), and I know that I typically argue in favor of all the different ways to "socialize" online, but I know they have their downsides, too.
I absolutely think and have seen firsthand how the use of all of these tools can improve employee engagement, involvement and connectivity at the workplace. Employees who have never seen their CEO now have the option of commenting on his or her blog, or listening a podcast from a top executive, or submitting questions that they will probably answer online... People can see their coworkers in a different, more personal light by connecting with one another on Facebook and LinkedIn and realize that the woman who always sounds so crabby and whiny in her cube across the hall has children, or something personal in her life that might just give you pause before becoming completely fed up with her again.
You get my point (I hope).
And now, with Twitter: talk about real-time news. I follow the likes of Mashable, the New York Times and NPR on TweetDeck. Suddenly, the most popular, up-do-date news is only a click away. I don't have to go to a ton of different Web sites to get different perspectives; they are all streamlined and saved right on my computer, for whenever I feel like looking it. Each Tweet includes a link to whatever article its headlining at the moment, in case I want to take a closer look.
Call it convenience, laziness or vanity, but people are responding to it. Now, I check it several times a day for news, instead of looking on the NYT's Web site and BBC.
And yes, I know there are serious downsides to being able to get literally all the information, news and culture you could ever possibly want by sitting in front of a computer screen. Kids "these days" are worse communicators. My mother complains about it constantly -- having to break up fights and shouting matches over what was posted last night on Facebook and what so and so said about whatshisface on thefatone's status. She is constantly telling me that they don't know how to socialize face-to-face anymore.
It is getting easier and easier to speak out hiding behind a virtual identity or Avatar... while we have a hard time looking each other in the eye's or standing up for ourselves in person. People have entire separate lives online. Instead of staying up reading in bed, they sit with their laptops propped on their laps, chatting with someone a floor below them.
I have mentioned this story a lot, but it is one that really resonates with me. I was an RA in college and my boss was an RD for about 13 years before I started working for her. When the school shootings at Virginia Tech happened, everyone was floored. People were glued to their TV sets, or more likely, their computers. The halls were quieter than we had heard them to be all year. No one was around, with only the muffled voices of news announcers coming through the doors.
My RD was amazed at the difference in response from 9/11 to the Virginia Tech massacre. She said that when the Twin Towers were hit, the common room of her dorm was packed. People were crowded around the TV watching together, taking comfort in one another and watching the events unfold together. Only a few years later and everyone was isolated. People were watching and paying attention, but in a completely singular, independent response. People weren't talking about it. If they were communicating about it at all, they were typing about it. There was no emotional response in roommates and hallmates. Just a bunch of people individually facing their own screens.
The onslaught of technology that computers and the Internet have brought was truly unstoppable. If you didn't jump on the speeding train, you could easily get left behind.
But it will certainly be interesting (and probably a little sad) to see what the next generation brings to the workforce. What will it be like when kids start working that have had information at their fingertips since infancy?
Interesting. Or something like it.
A Softer World: 1248
7 years ago
7 comments:
So true. My company even has their own internal social dohickey thing. You can posts photos and comments and blog. But only internal employees can see it. I don't really use it much, I think I posted a few photos because they were giving away prizes for the first people to use it.
As for isolation of people since 9/11 I guess I would have to concur somewhat. I do remember 9/11 my freshman year of college. And she is right the common rooms were packed with people glued to the TV rather than watching it alone in your dorm room. I personally use the social network things to stay in touch with people more than anything. For example with twitter I can know where people are and what they are doing. This helps me make plans for the evening pretty easily. But then again all I really use is twitter....not facebook. So i guess that really isn't a good view of social networking.
As for laptops, i have been struggling to decide which I like more, laptops or desktops. I liked having a desktop because it was isolated to my library. If I needed to use the computer I went to the library. Ideally this was meant to keep my computer usuage down. Instead I found myself being trapped in my library because I was always using the computer. So then I switched to my laptop for all my home computer, mainly because I enjoyed being able to sit on the couch or chair with my laptop. But soon i found myself picking up my laptop just out of boredom, when I could actually be doing lots of other things.
Now I am leaning towards no home computer and simply checking email with an iphone or something (of course Id have to buy an iphone). I love technology but I hate it...and so it goes.
You guys put a lot of thought into this stuff. I use the facebook to talk to the people who live far away, or the ones I'm too shy to really talk to. I use the blog to show everyone what I've been doing, and there is no way I would want people knowing what I'm doing every hour of the day.
I think the dymanics of a dorm can be drastically different year to year. I'm not going to sit in a room full of people I hate to watch something emotionally distrubing.
It's interesting how, for me, social networking sites are changing as more and more older people are using them (I use "older" very loosely!). I singlehandedly turned everybody in Gardiner on to Facebook, and at first it was annoying because there were some people I didn't want on there because I didn't want to deal with them (you can talk about how childish that was all you want, but it was what it was). Then suddenly, more professional adults were using it. In the last year, I've used Facebook to actually connect to several people I have never met but would like to get to know for professional and personal reasons... one guy works on the Crow Res and has been active in Native American issues; one guy travels all over the world and has hooked me up with his son who is a Peace Corps country director in Burkina Faso, and we have discussions about indigenous people; another chic I am contacting works in publications in Yellowstone, and I'm hoping to get some pointers (and perhaps a job!) from her in the future... 2 years ago I would have never used Facebook for these purposes; instead, it would have been for merely social reasons, nosy reasons, "look at how well I'm doing because you're a jerk/bitch" reasons, but now that its not just people my age, my actions have changed.
But I do agree that it is pretty isolating. I mean, look at us in my office... we share a big room and rarely speak, because our jobs revolve around our computers. I've recently started really trying to unplug myself on weekends and at night. Tried to unplug Jonmikel, as well. We've agreed, no laptops in bed, during dinner, or while watching a movie (except to check IMDB because we swear we know who that actor is). My phone is off most of the time anymore. His is on most of the time, but only because he's always on-call. I even got him to go on vacation without his laptop (something he does very rarely). And we definitely talk more; we have serious conversations and work out more of our problems without blowing up at each other now.
Though I suppose I am a bit old fashioned, anyway. I have never figured out how twitter or linkedin works (though I have accounts for both), I hate looking at news online and always try to get a paper instead (though with my job I tend to need more up-to-date stuff, so I end up using the internet quite a bit), and it always sort of bothers me when my boss just sends me an email from down the hall instead of just coming and talking to me about it... I always wonder what I will do when I have to figure out how to raise children as effective face-to-face communicators without generationally and socially isolating them.
The isolation of social media is merely the latest and most obvious form of social isolation that has been a continuous part of the 20th century.
Read Putnam's "Bowling Alone". It is the best read on the subject.
http://www.borders.com/online/store/TitleDetail?view=1&type=0&catalogId=10001&simple=1&rpp=25&defaultSearchView=List&keyword=bowling+alone&LogData=%5Bsearch%3A+13%2Cparse%3A+45%5D&searchData=%7BproductId%3Anull%2Csku%3Anull%2Ctype%3A0%2Csort%3Anull%2CcurrPage%3A1%2CresultsPerPage%3A25%2CsimpleSearch%3Atrue%2Cnavigation%3A0%2CmoreValue%3Anull%2CcoverView%3Atrue%2Curl%3Arpp%3D25%26view%3D1%26all_search%3Dbowling%2Balone%26type%3D0%26nav%3D0%26simple%3Dtrue%2Cterms%3A%7Ball_search%3Dbowling+alone%7D%7D&storeId=13551&sku=0743203046&ddkey=http:SearchResults
Also... not to sound like a jerk, but in response to Laura's comment... the reason you'd want to share an emotional moment with others you may not get along with is to find out they are human too, and build a bond across the annoyances that wall us apart.
whoops... sorry... I guess that title link didn't work... and I can't edit my comment.
this one church I like out in Seattle encourages twittering during the service. http://www.marshillchurch.org/media/in-the-news/twittering-encouraged-at-seattle-church
Bah, you clearly never met the people in my dorm. They weren't human. They were evil. It wasn't annoying stuff, it was evil stuff.
Jerk :)
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