“What a waste of time!”
I’ve never found a good way to answer this one, and I hear it regularly. People criticize using social media tools like blogs, Facebook, and Twitter (particularly merciless on Twitter) and state with a degree of assumed superiority, “I don’t have time for that…stuff.”
On a practical level I can appreciate this comment. I am well aware of the time that is needed, and the time that can be lost in communicating online. In my list of problems with social media, I’ve always put lost time as a greater danger than privacy concerns or inappropriate contact. It is easy to become engrossed in Twitter or Facebook (I don’t particularly have to fight to keep from working at my blog…which is apparent in the number of entries). I also agree that there is a lot of trivial junk on social media sites. I am less aware of this, because I follow interesting people who usually have something to say, but I concede that out there are thousands of ham sandwich eaters reporting in.
What does bug me about this type of comment is twofold. First there is an assumption in it that nothing of value can be done in this medium. I know this factually to be untrue, because I have learned from things I have read on Twitter (often much more than from other places). I have keep in touch and deepened friendships through these sites. Sometimes something has just made me laugh…which to my mind is one of the the greatest values in life. I wonder what deep important and desperately meaningful thing these critics are doing with their time. Not to be too nasty, but someone is watching Survivor.
The other irritation is the recognition of this as a pose that can be and is used against any enthusiasm. It is the ultimate condescension, “I know you like this, but I’m too good to be bothered.” I see this in all areas, including technorati who are equally dismissive of the ones who don’t participate. It can’t be a simple difference in interest, rather it has to be painted in terms of wrong or right, better or worse.
Recently I was listening to a couple of people playing out this conflict. On one side I felt the contempt of the social “mediarights” toward the unplugged, and on the other the disdain and fear of the time wasting narcissists by the properly focused technophobes. I practically broke into singing “The Farmers and the Ranchers Can Be Friends.”
Let’s not let social media be one more polarizing force in our social fabric
As always, I welcome your comments.
Photo Credit: ‘E’ guerra!!!!!!!!!!-Ovvero la vendetta di Geo-Cat attack’ http://www.flickr.com/photos/80417459@N00/2175836512