I learned something today---which above all things is a goal of mine that often enough doesn't materialize. I like to learn things, even when they are small and trifling. Or better yet---when they seem small and trifling but aren't.
Social media isn't new, or really even that groundbreaking. It's an old concept of creating a circle and sticking to it, expanding when evolution says it's cool or wise to do so, keeping it closed when things should stay status quo. This can be exemplified by almost all species...gorillas mate when it's time to do so, and they keep to their little pack (or whatever it's called in gorilla-circles, I'm not a zoologist.) However, if there is a new guy on the block, he can challenge those other gorillas in the circle for dominance and win "entrance" to their society, i.e: the right to breed with that society's female.
It applies to almost every group. Humans have just invented some buttons on our social media sites to take the place of a grueling battle with giant horns or hooves or teeth. So less blood, but the idea...well that's more or less similar.
There are two types of social media folks: immigrants and natives. So...you are either "entering" this already established world or you were born into it. It's an expansion of the evolutionary idea of societies and how they're shaped. I am an immigrant for the first time in my life. Unlike my 5 and 3 year old neices, I was born into a world where email wasn't my "go to" communication. I was 6 before I touched a computer...and does Oregon Trail really count as "computer use"? I was in highschool before my family got our first computer all equipped with AOL and "ready" for the internet via dial up.
These days, the Social Media natives are born with this stuff pre-programmed. Dial up is hysterical to them. HTML is completely out of date. In other words---this is their sphere. They already speak the language and all of us outsiders are learning about it, speaking it---but it isn't fluent. It's forced. It feels like...being in Spain and knowing how to say "Donde esta el Bano?" and then searching while the person giving you directions in Spanish speeds ahead. A la Derecho? Wait, is that right, or left?
Just like I don't understand why Justin Bieber matters, I don't understand how these folks can spend all day and all night adjusting their twitter feeds. But...it's cultural. I am not "from" this country of Social Media. I vacation there. I almost fit in.
But not quite---because I am an immigrant. I've tried this whole melting pot thing and you know what...it's never going to be quite for me. It's outside of my sphere of influence, my sphere of comfort. We all have our monkey spheres (see http://www.cracked.com/ and read it) and this...well...my people are on there but our level of use and integration isn't quite there because we're all immigrants sitting in on a "social media as a second language" course.
To me, its a semi useful tool and it has its value, but it's not my life. Natives completely disagree.
But of course, they are out of my monkey sphere.
Skeptically Yours.
