Is it time to abandon social media?
Social media has been increasing in popularity for the past few years, but maybe it’s time to abandon it altogether. Leo Laporte and Paul Carr certainly think there’s a case for doing so.
It seems there’s a new social media website to check out every week these days. Since Twitter crossed over to the mainstream there have been a lot of sites cropping up as entrepreneurs attempt to grab their slice of the social media pie.
The big problem for us punters is choice. It’s virtually impossible to keep up with all the sites, and actually impossible to update them all. What’s more, many of them are designed to make us condense our lives down to a few words. Twitter being the most famous example of this thanks to its text-friendly 140-characters limit.
Yesterday saw two of the best technology writers on the Web realize that the situation is no longer sustainable.
Leo Laporte recalled how a bad experience with Google Buzz has made him make a return to blogging, which has somewhat been forgotten in the drive to post to as many social media sites as possible.
Laporte realized that none of his Buzz posts had gone public since Aug. 6. While the cause of this is still a mystery, it’s the fact that no one had noticed that really threw Laporte’s view on Buzz and social media as a whole into disarray.
Then Paul Carr revealed that he’d closed down all of his social media accounts with the exception of Twitter. His reason for doing so was to become a “digital recluse,” which is, apparently, the new black.
Laporte’s blog post then made Carr realize something more telling: that the trend for micro-blogging has led to us all posting nonsense tidbits revealing pretty much nothing about our lives. There is no context, no meaning, no memories being documented for later viewing. Which is what keeping a diary or a blog provides.
As someone who tries and ultimately rejects most new social media sites which crop up, I can appreciate these realizations. I’m still on Facebook and Twitter, though my usage of both varies depending on my mood. But blogging (the longform variety) remains my main means of communicating to people on the Web. And long may it continue.
Is it time to abandon social media? Possibly. It’s certainly worth taking a long, hard look at how it’s serving your needs. I suspect many people will conclude it isn’t doing so at all.
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August 26th, 2010
How fitting to have “social media” sharing icons published after a post which outlines the death of Social Media.
I believe Social media is far from dead – The problem is people either don’t put enough time / investment into it or simply don’t choose a medium that suitable for them.
- Jake