The Missing Link

A business school student that doesn't fit into the business school mold discussing media trends and his uninformed views.

[mike-brown-blog]

Where am I?

I'm not going to quote 1984 or Brave New World.  Nor am I going to hide in the woods and read Catcher in the Rye under battery-generated light.  I am, however, going to share that I am surprised and unsettled by the increasing amount of formerly private matters being voluntarily offered up to the public. 

Relationships have been made and destroyed by Facebook statuses.  Pictures shared on such sites have lost people jobs and caused scandals.  Now, people are letting the world know where they are at any given moment through Foursquare and Facebook Places. It's not that I am against technology, or even a disbeliever of the power of social networks and social media. I even have a Foursquare account and occasionally check in to places.  However, I think very hard about who I become "friends" with on Foursquare (current count is at 3) and I mostly use the application, not as a means of connecting with others, but rather as a travel log of places I've been in case I should ever want to go back or recommend a place to a friend (a real live friend). With Facebook Places, people literally have been telling thousands of people that they chose not to hang out with them, that they're not home working on their part of whatever team project they owe (for work or for school), that they drink at bars on weekdays and often and, not to mention, that no one is home at their apartment or house for some time so come on by if you feel like stealing anything! 

Obviously, social media and such GPS applications offer many benefits and are here to stay.  I just believe that we haven't quite caught up in terms of etiquette and vetting who we allow into what network and what information we should be willing to share.  I would hypothesize that once the pace of new social technology emergence has slowed and we've hit a point where we've lived with such things for a while, the usage of such applications will decline and become more guarded.  The need for privacy is human nature.  The problem as I see it right now is that people don't universally appreciate the reality of cyberspace and the possible effects of baring all to the online world. 

[mike-brown-blog]

Tweet Tweet Tweet....

I've always been a little bit older than my classmates and a little slower on the uptake for adopting technology and technological trends.  I learned to type when I was 25 and returning to undergrad.  I owned my first computer at 26.  When all of my classmates, who were 6 years younger than me and blogging when they were in their tweens, were signing up for Facebook, I joined reluctantly but felt the human race regressing into a permanent high school mentality full of popularity contests (number of friends), cliques and gossip hounds (newsfeed especially once that came around).  Of course, this regression was a complete success and led the way for the great cultural de-evolutionary trend of social media.  From then on, the pokes, brightly colored logos, sling-shot flung birds, lol's and smiley faces abounded.  The developed world became app-crazy and face-to-face interaction became a step closer to obsolescence.  People craved Facebook "likes" and YouTube "hits" more than an actual hug or smile.

Facebook stati, desperate one-sentence cries for attention, called for a "brand new" re-framing of the same idea in the form of Twitter.  Twitter's success has of course hinged upon its catchy and cute name for using its application, i.e. "tweeting". As founder and director of a small nonprofit, I did everything I could to gain exposure and raise funding, including developing our website, e-newsletter and the occasional blog.  I reluctantly created a Twitter account as well for my company but rarely could think of anything to tweet besides publicizing upcoming events.

Now I've found myself in a class which has made regular tweeting mandatory and I've literally spent hours stressing about what the heck one is supposed to tweet.  What makes a good tweet?  What are major faux pas?  Is a question okay, as seen with Facebook status, or is one expected to deliver information only on Twitter?  And how does one become fluent in Twitter language?  Is there a Rosetta Stone for such things? Of course, as in undergrad, my classmates are all well ahead of me, tweeting away into a blissfully robust network of friends they've never met.  I've always tried my best to do well at whatever I am assigned, but adopting and embracing Twitter seems like such a lifestyle change and one that just doesn't seem to fit.  I feel like a twit when I tweet and wonder why I even care.   The only person following me is Tom from Myspace.