Negatives of Social Media: My 2 Parents!

I’m 45 and just coming to terms with the fact that social media might as well be embraced since it’s not going anywhere and knowing it better, will help me in my career! BUT I come by my lack of interest in getting on board to social media platforms honestly. My parents have ZERO interest in the whole concept of sharing your personal life, including thoughts, pictures, and personal details out into the world wide web – true social media haters. When we talk, the social media conversation is tabled along with religion, politics, and racism – essentially, topics that can get awkward discussing at the family dinner table.

Dinner Table

Have you ever had Christmas dinner with your entire family and someone brings up politics?! The whole room goes quiet other than the one person so close to the person who brought it up that they have nothing to lose in engaging in this conversation – that’s me at home when I bring up social media! I’m the youngest in my family other than my kids and when I bring up social media I get nothing but static or a hashing of negative comments about how I’m posting our personal life for all to see. Not sure how a post about my husband and I’s anniversary has anything to do with “their” personal life, but apparently it does! lol

multiculturalcaregiving.net

The Sad Truth

The true story is that it’s hard. It seems like my life and my career all revolve around social media. I have 2 young teenagers who’s school and personal lives definitely include social media. My job could absolutely benefit from me knowing more about social media, hence why i’m taking this course. Yet, I still can’t discuss social media with my parents because they’ve taken a strong belief in hating it. Why? Because they can! They’re retired. They don’t have kids in elementary and high school. They don’t have bosses asking if they’ve posted a Family Day Instagram add for the business today, which I did. 😉

“Older adults themselves are often the worst perpetuators of the myth that old age precludes engagement with a myriad of digital technologies. Doing so allows older adults a privilege not available to most working-age adults to take personal stands against the aspects of technology they find worrying, threatening or just plain annoying.” (Lancaster University, para. 13)

Do you have people in your life that you can’t talk social media with? Do you find it hard? Let me know in the comments below as I’d love to hear how you handle this!

Shamia Casiano, Pexels.com

Do you have social media haters in your family? Read up on my story and tell me yours in return! https://bit.ly/3IF8JnZ

Are you unable to talk to your parents about social media? Me neither, lets share stories! https://bit.ly/3IF8JnZ

References

Lancaster University. (2018, March 12). Why some older people are rejecting digital technologies. ScienceDaily. http://bit.ly/3xBq62q.

The Rabbit Hole That is Social Media

We’ve all been there, picked up our phones for one thing and 1 hour later we’re still there and forgot why we logged on in the first place. In this blog I will share 3 experiences my family and I run into when it comes to social media and the rabbit hole you dive into to follow the same experiences as your friends.

Bathroom Breaks

Don’t deny it; we’ve all taken our phones to the bathroom thinking it’ll entertain us while we “clear our heads” and instead of falling into the toilet, we fall into the rabbit whole that is social media. Sometimes it’s a game or even work we’ve been thinking about for days and haven’t gotten around to, but then an Instagram notification pops up from our bestie and we follow the link. Occasionally on a lazy Sunday morning, sure, but if we get into the habit of doing this too often it can be unhealthy and time consuming. Next thing you know we have nothing productive to show for our weekend even though we’ve literally seen tons of motivating posts from friends who went skiing, snowmobiling or canned pasta sauce and cowboy candy. S#!& or get off the pot!

Photo Credit: ROMAN ODINTSOV, pexels.com

Recipe Roulette

Hmm, let’s look up a quick recipe for dinner tonight – which recipe will I fall on? Sometimes I take more time finding a recipe for my family than the time it takes to cook the meal itself. I bounce from one Pinterest recipe to another, then jump onto Google to check out Gordon Ramsay’s version of the beef wellington for a special occasion coming up and spin the wheel again and see if maybe there’s a simpler recipe I want to look for altogether. It’s confusing at times to have so many options and social media can make it hard to be decisive because my friend Heather posted a recipe of her delicious ribs on Facebook, but auntie Teri’s lettuce wraps might be a healthier option for tonight?! lol If we don’t set a time limit it’s very easy to get distracted and continue to search until the sun goes down and we run out of time and order pizza!

Filet of Beef Wellington | Gordon Ramsay – YouTube

Travel Train

Hubby & I on vacay – Snapchat filters travel well

My wedding anniversary was in September; we had a wonderful dinner at a local restaurant, but decided it was time for a little getaway to reconnect from our busy lives. We got home that evening and started our online search. First, pulling up a Facebook post of our close friends that recently travelled; then, researching that location only to find out they were fully booked on the weekend we wanted to go. This travel idea started at the end of September, by the time we finished searching the possible ideas that social media was throwing at us, we didn’t leave until December 1st. Sometimes, too many options can be daunting and overwhelming when all you want to do is get away for a couple days. My suggestion, keep it simple, stick to what you’re interested in and don’t spend time researching your cousin’s trip to Mont Tremblant if your first idea was to stay within 2 hours of home. Know yourself and your budget and only take the time to look into your ideas without getting lost in other people’s interests in the process.

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What’s your idea of going down the rabbit hole when it comes to social media? Read up on my version of it here – bit.ly/3kR6TXD

The rabbit hole that is social media – bit.ly/3kR6TXD

3 Benefits of Social Media

Before social media, spreading the word involved a lot of time in networking, making calls, going out into the community and print marketing. The return on investment was nothing compared to posting information for all to see on one or many social media platforms. In this blog I will share with you 3 experiences that I found helpful for business, community, and personal connection.

1 – Fundraising

In 2017, I was the executive assistant to a realtor who hosted an event that helped raise funds for a local food distribution hub – Feed the Need Durham. As part of my daily tasks, social media was the main tool in spreading the word. A Facebook page was created to post the event’s details and generate buzz. Not only did this attract interest, but it did it quickly and to a large audience in just minutes. Sponsors, food and monetary donations as well as volunteers all started reaching out to us as a result of this one post; it was incredibly easy and saved a lot of time and money! Also, any changes that needed to be shared with the community were simply posted on this Facebook page for instant, widespread communication updates. We could add photos and volunteer forms, links to sponsors for recognition and make things fun and creative with engaging contests or help requests. This fundraising event definitely opened my eyes to one of the many benefits of social media and opened my heart by feeling the impact it made in our community. It changed my life by teaching me a new and different way of doing business while helping others in the process.

Me unloading donations and hubby and I volunteering the night of the event.

2 – Event Planning

Photo Credit: Markus Winkler, Unsplash

Similar to Fundraising, but usually more on the friends and family side of things, event planning or at least the invitation and RSVP part of it, is made super easy by social media’s user-friendly tools. On Facebook there’s a create new event option that allows us to add a feature image, details such as date and time, location, and a message to all invitees.

Last spring my husband and I were invited to a friend’s 50th birthday party in the above-mentioned way. We both loved being able to log into our own separate accounts and see who was all invited. During the weeks leading up to this event we saw updates and tons of activity on who could and couldn’t go, comments from friends and family who showed excitement for the upcoming par-teh and tons of photos of our friend throughout his lifetime. It was fun and engaging! After the fact we were tagged in tons of photos from the event which we were able to comment on or even save the images if they were important to us.

I find event planning easier and way more engaging through social media than getting a good old fashion invitation in the mail. Don’t get me wrong, I used to create cards and invitations via Illustrator back in the day, but I haven’t used it in years because it’s so convenient and fun to send invites and manage attendees all at the comfort of my fingertips no matter where I am in the world. The fact that guests can also share their ideas and add input to the theme is something that adds value and creativity to the experience, and I love this. Including people in the process is very fulfilling from both the creator’s side and the invitees side making it worth trying if you haven’t already.

3 – A Sense of Belonging

Photo Credit: Tim Mossholder, Unsplash

Recently, back in my hometown, my brother and I lost a friend unexpectedly, an ex-boyfriend for me TBH. My brother still lives there, but myself and many other friends live further out. Over the course of several weeks there were many gatherings in support of those who grieved this loss. Unable to partake in these last minute get togethers I found comfort and even joy thanks to his brother, who is an avid social media user for both business and personal use. He posted so many wonderful memories and many people, including myself, were able to be part of the grieving process alongside our old group of high school friends – wherever we were in the world.

I found comfort and even joy within the hundreds of comments that were shared and loved being able to see everyone come together and even some reconnect after years of separation, all because of social media and one person’s ability to utilize its massive distribution feed and show vulnerability and compassion. It brought me tears; it brought me a sense of being there and it made me feel closer to what was happening back home without actually being there. If this isn’t a benefit of social media, then I don’t know the meaning. To have a platform that makes you feel at home when you’re far away is priceless.

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Social media has many benefits, here are 3 of them from a Gen-X perspective! 😉

Want to know 3 benefits of social media, click here!

Cite: Photo Credit (Facebook/Twitter Images): Brett Jordan, Pixels