Social Media - For Better or For Worse - Part 2 (or She Made Me Think!)

So....back to the question @fleur_de_lotus asked that made me think...
How Different would your life be without social media? Better? Worse?

And this is the second part of "It Made Me Happy" today, because for the most part, social media makes me happy.

I should let you know, social media for me is Twitter, Facebook, how I get most of my news and a little blogging here and there. I've got a Google+ account but haven't used it since the day I got it. There is much more social media out there, but I don't understand it all, know much about or use it.

I also do not consider myself to be a social media expert or specialist or anything, but I do use social media as part of my life, on a daily basis.

Why does social media make me happy...why do I feel like my life is better because of it? Because I keep in touch with so many friends and family. I see pictures that I would never see. I find out about weddings, and birth announcements as they happen to a wider circle of friends and loved ones. I am able to keep tabs on a wider circle of friends, to support them, be happy for them, and celebrate their lives with them.

Social media gets my news to me faster. When the earthquake happened June 2010 in Ottawa, and I had a scared little boy in the office with me, I was able to tell him within seconds what was going on and that it would be ok. I received information faster and with more clarity than over the school board's emergency information line.

Social media allows me to share. It gives me an outlet. I am able to ask questions, give answers, and express myself in a manner that I enjoy. I feel like a student, an expert, an artist, a writer, and a performer, all at the same time.

However, I believe there are some parts of social media that makes things worse...potentially.

I can easily slip into patterns of not TALKING to my close friends and family as much. I don't need to pick up the phone and call, and have a conversation as much as I would if I didn't have Facebook. It's easy not to have to commit as much time or focus on relationships as much, and still appear to be very involved. Taking the time to maintain personal relationships personally is important to remember. Social media is a tool not a crutch.

Social media sometimes feel like it could overrun my life. NEEDING to know all of the time what's happening on Twitter, on Facebook, in the news. It would be easy to be more involved with my online life than with the world offline. Instead of telling others what's going on in my life, I can just make the information readily available for all to read and see, instead of again, talking with them, making it a conversation rather than a "look at me".

There is also the possibility of opening myself up to all sorts of negative people. Short of keeping top security on everything I do online (which I sort of see as defeating the purpose), a lot of my life is online for others to see, which has the potential to put me at risk. So I try and monitor just how much I share, and how much I allow comments and opinions to affect me.

I know people who avoid social media altogether for privacy and security reasons. I also know I could allow myself to get so carried away with social media that the "real me" could cease to exist. However, social media is another area of life, where In Moderation strikes me as being important. I feel like I'm am learning everyday how to properly balance this fabulous world of information, learning, news and people with my life outside of social media. Keeping social media...social.

Thank you again to @fleur_de_lotus for asking the question this morning and giving me something to ponder.

With Love
~sarah~