Is Social Media a Life Skill?
So, I was reading Women's Health magazine recently and saw an Article called ‘Hack into your Social Media Potential’ strategically placed under the section heading ‘Life Skills’. The magazine is only on its 8th issue but picking up pace as one of the premier women’s lifestyle magazines here in the UK, so for them to place social media under the heading ‘Life Skills’ is a sign of the times.
Writer Alice Palmer goes on to say: “Use our expert guide to create an online buzz that’ll bring serious gains to your bank balance, love life and career. #Truestory”
...but is it a ‘true story’?
It’s much more ‘normal’ these days to have a Facebook account than not to have one. Numerous employers advertise new job opportunities via Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn as opposed to or in addition to their own websites, which suggests that they are actively looking for a candidate who understands social media. In a survey by careerbuilder.com, 37% of companies who took part in the survey said that they use social networks to screen potential new employees. So perhaps social media in this sense is indeed a ‘Life Skill’ if it could influence your ability to get a job.
In a lecture given on the Google Squared course, Andy Sandoz (founder of Work Club) spoke about how information is power and the Social web allows people to connect with more people and more information at a very fast pace. None of this would be possible, however, without the previous shifts in technology.
“Everything stands on the shoulders of something else,” he says, and likens smoke signals in ancient China to a Tweet by saying that the idea of communicating something is the same, it’s just the flow of information and technology for communicating it has evolved. If someone hadn’t thought of smoke signals, would we still have Twitter?
There is a lot of scepticism about the future of technology, what it is doing to us and how it will evolve and change our lives. Perhaps what these sceptics have failed to realise is that it’s been happening since the dawn of time. Technology is alive and therefore it ages like living things do. If it didn’t change, adapt, overcome and evolve then it would die. Continuing this metaphor, living life can be scary, yes, but it is an inevitable and exciting journey which we should embrace, not be sceptical about.
So is social media a life skill? If you would consider being able to write a good letter or come across well at an interview as life skills then surely social media is now in the same boat. If technological evolution means that a lot of life happens online socially, we’d be missing out if we ignored it. So although I was initially a little bit unsure of Women’s Health magazine’s label of ‘Life Skills’, I can see how right they are. And I’m blogging on a social media site to prove it. #Truestory
