Social Media Challenged...or The Challenge of Social Media

Used to be that going online for me meant that I would head over to AOL, log on and play a game of solitaire while I waited for the computer to connect with the internet, using a very weird, but oddly reassuring set of blips, beeps, dial tones and what almost amounted to a computer shout, before the little icon would pop up on the mailbox and the AOL guy would say, "You've got mail!" For a few months in late 1996, AOL allowed you to program a guest celebrity voice to tell you 'you had mail'. Mine was Hugh Grant, before the whole Divine Brown thing and movies like American Dreamz, something....the Morgans and Bridget Jones 2 and I was still a fan. Sorry Hugh... got nothin' but love for ya...but you did make some execrable movies. (Cough) Mickey Blue Eyes (Cough) Nine Months.

Nowadays the gap between me and the internet has considerably narrowed. There is a whole WIFI network in my home. No more blips and beeps. Just hit the icon and go, you are online. Frequently I am online on my laptop/tablet and my TV is too, simultaneously playing some Netflix offering.

Many days, before I've had my morning breakfast, and while I am still in my robe and pajamas, I've already started 'online' because I've no less than 4-5 sites to hit.  Outlook/Gmail for my emails, Facebook to make sure that I am still relevant and have 'friends', LinkedIn to obsess over my professional image, Twitter to check my popularity and YouTube for anything new and recreational. Not to mention blog stats, to see if anyone is actually reading this and puzzle out who the people are that are breezing by this to read and not comment.

Frankly, I am tired just reading the above.

As part of my 'career training', I have been increasingly coached and coerced into creating, refining and editing my 'online presence'.

My online presence...I started to ponder that today. Introspection reached a zenith when looking through my LinkedIn contacts and all the suggestions from them (LinkedIn) of the "People You May (Should) Know", were, I realized about 95% from Non-Company. Non-Company= pain. I  just don't want anything to do with or to have to think about Non-Company.  But how do you just delete people?  LinkedIn is a place where prestige is gained by the amount of contacts you have and how often your profile is buzzed. Hopefully it's buzzed by some multi-millionaire entrepreneur type needing a personal assistant who wouldn't mind working out of his lakeside estate on Lake Como.

Ditto for Facebook. Facebook is just pain of a more familial and social nature. Again, how do you just delete?  Because FB contacts are not just business contacts, many are personal friends and relations. Many of which you might see once a year, if that? So why do I need to be updated constantly on your activities? Most of which just serve as reminders that my life isn't as populated by cute kids doing cute things, and backyard BBQ's as yours because nearly everyone in my life is dead.

 I even tried quitting cold turkey only to be told by a career counselor, that amounted to career suicide.  Really. Could my career die a more gruesome death than it already has due to natural causes?

At least with Twitter, my feed gives me useful things, reminders about encroaching thunder storms, traffic alerts, gas price alerts, when my favorite TV shows are on, what the celebrities on my favorite TV shows are doing. By the way, kudos to the NCIS Twitter people who bonus-ed me with a nice pic of a toothsome and shirtless Michael Weatherly reading over the script for the 1st episode of the new season! Hopefully Michael was at the part where Tony DiNozzo kills the bastards who shot Gibbs and is able to ascertain that he was wearing a vest and will be okay.....

YouTube is probably my favorite. It lets me know whenever Mazda have new video of the Miata up on their feed, gives me back all of my childhood memories, in some cases lets me watch entire seasons of "I'm Alan Partridge", and the music videos that thanks to reality TV, MTV no longer play.

I know that, much like rock and roll, (which actually may have died without us realizing it) social media is here to stay. But just as the old folks who shook their heads at Elvis (sacrilege) and Jerry Lee, I don't have to like it!

Here's to future days! You know when the hackers hit the server farms and we are knocked back to an age where we have to talk to one another in person, on the phone, and listen to what we actually say out loud.

Well, a girl can dream, can't she?