For this week's posts I figured a fun way to write the reflective journal is to re-read all the screencasts of this module (organised by week) as posted on Google communities and then write this reflective journal based on my understanding of the specific content in relation to the overall content of this module.
The first intriguing item of interest was the Conversation Prism as originally designed by Brian Solis and Jess3. I had never seen one of those and what was shocking to me was the discovery of the numerous social media platforms out there (probably increased since the date of publication to this writing date).
This dial is incredibly informative but it is also the perfect reflection of my state of mind with social media in general - OVERWHELMING!
Let's "dial" back in my timeline a bit to clarify this statement. I was slow to adopt social media when it first evolved. I did not grow up with Social Media. In fact, the Internet came at the time I graduated high school. So like most others in the bandwagon, I assumed social media to be another passing fad in the likes of MySpace, Facebook and Friendster. I did finally venture on to Facebook but not until 2008. I dabbled in it for a while, connected with some old school friends, posted some pics and then I got bored. I didn't get it. I figured it was something that the Millennial generation did. Over the next few years I heard about Twitter but again it was something I just did not get. I reminded me of the heydays of Instant Messaging but now to the entire world. I did use Linkedin regularly but the motivation was primarily for career enhancement and not for it's social aspect.
Finally in 2012, I took a stab at Twitter and for some reason I was hooked from day 1. Soon after I followed up with writing short blog posts (again something I didn't understand previously). Blogging and tweeting became a routine; at times almost like an addiction. Now although I was focused on just a few social media platforms by 2013, there were several new ones popping up everyday at that time. I started to open up accounts on as many other platforms as I could and dabbled in each for a while. As of last count, I was on 52 social media platforms. Sometime in late 2013, I finally became mentally exhausted by social media involvement. This is when fatigue set in just by wanting to "check in" online.
My resulting action was to purge myself of social media platforms and restrict use to the most relevant ones for my semi-professional blogging activities. I also made it a point to not spend more than 2 hours per day on the Internet (whether access through computer, TV or smartphone did not matter).
Coming back to the topic of the Conversation Prism, one can see how the mere sight of the dial with the numerous platforms in small fonts and images can remind me of the overwhelming aspect of social media. From a strategic business aspect, what that means is one cannot devote limited resources (no matter how deep the pocket is) for communicating through every channel available in social media universe. Strategic selection is the key. It does not matter if a person is the user (as platform content generator) or the reader (recipient of the content). There comes a point where our minds cannot fathom constant barrage of information and needs to shut off. This is what I mean by the "Folly" of social media. When too much of something becomes bad for you, it is time to realise that the decline and popularity of a tool will inevitably follow.
Another example of how social media becomes overwhelming is also evidenced in the SMS module hangout group. Each week the amount of readings (and sub-readings as others commented and posted other information) was strenuous at best. It is easy to share and post content nowadays but what one does not think about is the amount of virtual "junk" that is left behind in the Internet as a result of constant sharing and posting.
This aspect was covered in one of the screencast videos titled "Always-On Society". Indeed, our habits have evolved to remain always on to face the barrage of constant information input. However, if the previous generation was able to create a successful world prior to the advent of social media, and if human generations tend to follow cyclical patterns in behaviour, it can be reasonable to assume that at some point in the future (perhaps one or two generations later), people will start to revert back to less information and less use of social media and start become "sometimes-on" society.
I will get back to this subject again in a future post and discuss what effects the constant barrage of information can have on the human mind.
-Abi
No comments:
Post a Comment