Social Media; can’t live with it, can’t live without it.

So far, I have been posting a few blogs concerning Social Media. However, I’ve seen some posts about Social Media where people were kind of “fed up” with Social Media, and to be honest I can understand why. Here is one of the reasons I can think of: there is a lot of Spam! Yes, spam; a bulk of unsolicited messages. All those messages about how crowded a train was or what everyone is doing every single minute of the day is basically nothing more than spam. Another example perhaps: some applications available for Social Media, for instance Facebook, create a “photo wall” with pictures taken from your and other (unknown) people’s profile and “tags” (placing your name, and including a link to your profile) your photo on the “photo wall”. Some of these applications can create “photo walls” of approx. 25 people. Now, it seems logical (and maybe fun) that you can see someone’s name and get a link to their profile when hovering over their photo on the “photo wall”. However, the downside is that people will eventually comment on these photo walls and you will receive a message (and e-mail, depending on settings) for every single person that posts a comment, oh what a joy.

On the other hand, there is also a positive aspect. I just stated that it’s not very interesting to see what everyone is doing every single minute of the day, but from some people (mostly the ones which really really mean something to you) you do want to know what they are up to. After all, Social Media is a decent tool, which can be used to maintain relationships. But there is more, for example: advertisements shown at Social Media might be a bit dull and most of the time unasked for, but the advertisements which are shown are (most of the time) also interesting, appealing and perhaps even inspiring. With interesting and appealing I mean, that they don’t bore or frustrate you, in contradiction to the advertisements shown in a commercial block on television, which are simply boring and frustrating. And last but not least, from my own point of view it’s quite fun to ‘spam’ the world with everything your doing, even if no one else cares about it. A simple post can even ease your mind when you’re frustrated or annoyed. 

Bottom line: What to do with Social Media? Can’t live with it, can’t live without it.

- Rik Terpelle