The {Guest} Post About Social Media: For Better or Worse

My guest rabbit chaser today is Andrew Brasfield. Andrew and I bumped into each other on the Internet. YOU CAN MAKE FRIENDS THERE MOM. We're both bloggers from Alabama and that really does bind you. With the literacy and all. Since that chance encounter, he and I have become fast friends connected via Twitter, Facebook, and all other ways except in person. But I'm sure we will meet some day and the relationship will end. 

I'm much cooler on the Internet. Which is still not that cool. - Jamie

{image: webtreats} 

Social media is everywhere.

Facebook badges and Shazam icons on TV commercials, QR codes on posters leading to Twitter pages, circles, friends, groups, direct messages, it's EVERYWHERE! 

That could be a good thing.

The first bit of news about the Miracle on the Hudson was Tweeted. I first heard of the untimely death of Michael Jackson on Twitter. I have had celebrity interaction on Facebook and Twitter (Jason Isbell follows me. Just sayin') and I really do keep up with lots of my friends on Facebook. I have "met" people on Facebook, then met them in real life.  I have met people in person once, had them friend me, then when we talk again in person a few weeks or months later, it's like we've known each other for - eh - vor.

If you have social media interactions with people - the getting-to-know-them rate skyrockets.  What used to take 6 months of hanging out every few weekends to know somebody can happen within a week or two and certainly within a month. To me, that is insane. However, it is nice to meet someone in person, then really get to know them on the web. Sometimes you realize you really aren't very similar and never talk again. Sometimes you meet a friend or gain a fan for life.

By the same token, it's also a buzz kill. 

If you have good news to share and tweet it or update your status, then all of the friends you would talk to in person already know about it. So when you open your conversation with, "I just got a new job and I love it and you'll never guess who I saw" they reply with, "Congrats on the new job, I hear the community college is awesome to work for and yes I also heard that Jess is back in town and will be here for another month until she flies back to Korea to teach English."

BOOM!

A whole conversation just got had and you weren't even actually in it. You were foiled by the buzz kill of social media already doing it for you. No worries, you still have plenty to talk about. Like...your Starburst wrapper chain from 8th grade (no one would blog about that.)

And so friends, let me conclude by saying social media is here to stay, even if it's people on one platform talking about why they don't understand the people who are still on the other outdated/passé/uncool platform.

What good have you seen come from social media? What's been a buzz kill? 

Andrew Brasfield is a guy living in the rural South who likes to write songs, play harmonica, guitar and ukulele. He cooks and hangs with his wife and 2 daughters. Find him on Twitter.