Sunday, January 21, 2018

The Social Media Black Hole.

I'm not very good at social media.

As both of the readers of this blog can attest, I am at best sporadic in my posts, and they lack any kind of consistent theme.  And that's the problem.

I'm on social media, at least the common sites: Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, etc., and I read most of them each week (although Twitter has gotten even less enjoyable over the past year).  But while reading about what's going on in the news, and peeking into the lives of my friends and colleagues, both recent and older, is useful, I normally find that I don't have much to say that should interest others.

Not that stuff doesn't go on in my life - sure it does.  This year is going to be an exciting one, with an Eagle Court of Honor, High School graduation start of college for one, start of college search for another, K has a marathon coming up, I've got lots of races planned.....there's plenty going on in our lives.  But it's that "why would people be interested" that holds me back. 

And I can do it - when I have a project, or something that I need others to focus on where SM is the platform we use to communicate, I can be very active.  But it seems it's always got to be *about* something specific - a goal, a project, an event....just the activities of my daily life doesn't seem to make the cut of things I want to talk about.

Maybe I'm just too old school....that's the point - do I just have the wrong mindset about social media and sharing?  Not 'wrong' per se, but just mis-aligned to a lot of the culture today.  If so, I expect I'm not alone - I have lots of connections on these platforms from whom I rarely ever hear, including many members of my own family, and my wife's family really isn't even on social media (but that's not surprising given who they are). 

I also don't know why it gives me (low-level) stress not to be more active.  Maybe it's seeing the activity of frequent posters / twitters / podcasters that makes me think it's what I should be doing.  I think that urge to join is part of my psyche (always has been).  It's just that - at this point in my life - that doesn't hit the high priority list, and as you can tell, even this blog which I use as a personal outlet, doesn't get the attention it probably deserves.

I'm not sure anything will change in the near future - at least not until I get a new job that provides me more free time than Saturday evenings.  But maybe I'll stick my head out of the frozen ground once in a while.

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