Social media and all its uses

It seems nearly everyone uses some form of social media these days. Whether it’s Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, LinkedIn, Flickr, Pinterest or Tumblr people are connecting on at least one of these sites. Some use their cellphones exclusively for some of them, others use nearly every electronic device they have. Of course there are many stories out there of how these can cause a person either minor headaches to major problems.

Overall social media is meant to be a positive. Helping families and friends stay connected, find out what is going on in their lives and allowing people a more instantaneous way of communicating. Some would argue that a phone still allows this, which is true, but we’ve become used to doing things differently. I’ve heard a few stories where people consider phone calls quaint and they should be using text. I’m one of those that would point out that not everyone has access to text, either because of finances, limited knowledge of how to use the system or they just can’t type that fast with their thumbs.

I think one of the most common complaints about social media I’ve heard is the intent of what the person means when they are simply using words. More than one story has surfaced where someone wrote something that they meant as sarcasm. Now, there are times when a sentence is worded that it’s pretty clear it’s meant to be sarcastic, but there have been some where it was worded ambiguously enough that people interpreted the message to be serious. For some people, to clear up any misconception, they have actually written (sarcasm) or (snark) after their sentence to help drive home the point. I’m not going to get into emojis, those little pictures that some people post with their messages, since emojis have taken on a life of their own and can be used as code.

Then there’s the issue of who is using social media. As mentioned earlier, people want to be able to connect, but when someone has a job that is in the public sector there are positives and negatives to that. Some would say it adds a level of transparency for a person in the public sector. The thing is, I’ve been to more than one city council meeting where the council had to discuss if three or more council member weigh in on a subject on social media does it count as a quorum and do the open meetings laws apply? Of course, we all know of at least one public figure who uses a form of social media that some have cheered his use of it, others, not so much.

Some would say we should just think before we write out and send that angry text or Facebook message. I would agree with that, but sometimes we are so taken up in the heat of a moment that it overcomes our common sense. So, that little message we meant for only a few people to see, where we complained about something just to get it off our chest, gets leaked out or doesn’t go away fast enough before someone sees it who wasn’t meant to. It’s similar to the song line “When the wrong word, goes in the right ear.” When that happens we suddenly find we need to at least apologize.

It does come down to how do you plan to use social media. You can use it to communicate a little of what’s going on in your life, use it as a public diary, vent about what is bothering you or simply share cute pet videos.