Saturday, August 25, 2012

Has Social Media "Jumped the Shark"?

In Internet years, I've been on social media a long time. I was on Twitter before anybody got the stupid idea to call themselves a "Social Media Consultant". I was on FaceBook in 2007. I was on Google Plus when you had to be invited. I can claim to know a few things about social media.

And lately, I'm sick of it. I don't know if it's just because this is an election year, and everybody has lost their mind. Maybe things will get better in December or next year.

Until then, I've pretty much lost my enthusiasm for social media. I ways, that's great. I have a lot more time back since I only check FaceBook twice a week. I post to Twitter occasionally, but don't bother to see if anybody retweeted or responded (hint: they didn't).

I came up with a description of social media. Social media is like screaming a one-liner into a crowded room full of other screaming people, hoping somebody might hear you and laugh or scream back. But that rarely seems to happen.

It doesn't help that I'm coming to see social media as a tool for attention whores. "Look at me! Look at my picture of Denny's at 3 AM! Look at the political demotivator I shared! It's so witty, it should definitely show the idiots from the binary other side of the political spectrum how stupid they are, because all political issues can be boiled down to a picture of the other guy with a word like 'bankers' or 'socialist' under him."

I've started gravitating back to narrower communities. Rather than being in the crowded convention hall that is FaceBook, Twitter, and Google Plus, I've started hanging out online in communities dedicated to a narrower focus. 

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