Social Media: So, What Is It for People in Transition?

Written by Alex Freund

Explore - Networking

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There’s no newspaper or magazine nowadays that does not devote some space to the fast-developing new phenomenon called social media. My explanation for this is very simple: Let’s say you invite some people for a social gathering to take place in your house. Among the dozen or so you host will be some who are very knowledgeable about certain subjects, and some others, less so. That doesn’t mean that those who aren’t very knowledgeable will not contribute to the conversation. They will, but their content will be less factual or less valuable to the listeners.

So, how does this situation apply to the electronic versions of social media? Today there are a significant number of such venues. The more popular are Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn (which is oriented more toward business contacts). People use them for communication in a similar way that those guests of yours do in your house. However, the interchanges happen electronically. Some of the written material is thorough, researched, meaningful, and at times useful. Other information simply amounts to chitchat that has no value except perhaps to a very few. The advantage of social media is that if you don’t like what you read, you can just move on to read something else. Conversely, when you’re faced with a similar situation in a physical venue, it would be rude to tell the speaker you’re bored and you’d prefer to move on.