Navigating social media
21/07/16 05:43
We’ve got another wedding in our family in just a little less than a month. A niece and her fiancé have been diligent in announcing their engagement, sending out wedding invitations and making preparations for their big day. It is an event that we would love to attend, but the location is too distant and the timing conflicts with other obligations that we had already made. So we put a bit of extra effort into choosing a gift and expressing our congratulations to the couple. Along the way in the process, we checked out the gift registry that the couple had created on a social media site. The site turned out to be easy to use and made the process of choosing a gift quite convenient.
I’m not the biggest fan of online shopping, but I do a fair amount of it. There are certain items, such as parts for the car or pickup, that are often less than half the price of the same part at a local dealership. I know that having the local dealership is a benefit to our community and I try to support local dealers when possible, but it isn’t practical to pay over double the price for certain items. Similarly, when a local merchant doesn’t have a desired item and promises that they can order it, I usually decline. I, too can order it and when I do it nearly always arrives much more quickly and at a lower price than the item ordered by the local merchant. Online purchases also participate in the local economy if by no other reason than providing work for the package delivery services. I’ve gotten to know some of the drivers who deliver for UPS in our community. They are good, hard-working members of our community, who participate fully in our local economy.
Still, it is easy for someone like me to take a look at the world of social media and online marketing and the way that the two areas interact and come to the conclusion that I’m confused by much of what is going on and feeling grateful that I’m not facing adolescence in this confusing and sometimes brutal world of online relationships.
Tinder is an online dating site owned by InterActiveCorp, a New York-based company that also owns the dating site Match.com, the search service Ask, and The Daily Beast news site. According to the company, 85% of its users are between the ages of 18 to 34. They also claim to have made 11 billion matches since launched in 2012. That’s a really big number. I don’t know if it means 11 billion marriages, or 11 billion dates, or 11 billion social media exchanges. However the numbers are counted, it is clear that there are at least tens of millions of users of the service around the world and it is being used by young adults as a way to meet others.
I’m not sure, but I believe that our young relatives who are getting married this summer met the old-fashioned way: face-to-face after being introduced by friends. Still they belong to a generation that is quite at home using electronic devices to assist with social functions such as planning dates and meeting new people.
It makes me grateful for the times of my own life. I met the woman who is now my wife at church camp. Our parents knew each other through church functions before we began dating. We attended the same college and shared a similar circle of friends. I didn’t have to spend an evening completing an online profile and wondering which photograph of myself to post to display my best features. I didn’t have to worry about the security risks of meeting a complete stranger through posts on social media. I never felt at risk for cyberbullying or pressure from people I had never met face-to-face. The world of the younger generation of our family is much more complex and difficult to navigate than was the case for our generation.
It is true that our generation didn’t always have success in forming lasting relationships. Although I have been fortunately blessed with a long and joyful marriage, five of the seven children in my immediate family have experienced divorce, some of them have had multiple divorces. I have plenty of friends whose “old fashioned” dating experiences were less than fulfilling and occasionally subjected them to abuse. I’m not trying to make the argument that the world has been somehow damaged by the advent of all of the different forms of social media. I’m just saying that it is different. My particular personality seems to be less well-suited to a social media world than that of some of the younger members of our family.
However, just as I have adopted some online shopping practices, I also find myself employing social media. I signed up for Facebook originally in order to keep track of a nephew who traveled extensively and posted pictures and travel reports on the site. I realize that that particular site is most popular among people of my own age, but I continue to use it as a way to make connections with others. Like many other things on the Internet, you have to endure quite a bit of useless information in order to get to the connections you want, but after a bit of a learning curve, you get better at skipping irrelevant information and getting to the pictures and news of people about whom you care. I’m still amazed at the number of friend requests I receive from people that I simply don’t know. I guess there are some cases in which we are friends of friends, but other times I simply can’t figure out any possible connection. My list of friends on Facebook is very short compared to most. On the other hand, I have a lot of friends with whom I connect in daily living.
Most days I’m so busy talking with the people in my life that I barely have time for my electronic devices.
I like it that way.
I’m not the biggest fan of online shopping, but I do a fair amount of it. There are certain items, such as parts for the car or pickup, that are often less than half the price of the same part at a local dealership. I know that having the local dealership is a benefit to our community and I try to support local dealers when possible, but it isn’t practical to pay over double the price for certain items. Similarly, when a local merchant doesn’t have a desired item and promises that they can order it, I usually decline. I, too can order it and when I do it nearly always arrives much more quickly and at a lower price than the item ordered by the local merchant. Online purchases also participate in the local economy if by no other reason than providing work for the package delivery services. I’ve gotten to know some of the drivers who deliver for UPS in our community. They are good, hard-working members of our community, who participate fully in our local economy.
Still, it is easy for someone like me to take a look at the world of social media and online marketing and the way that the two areas interact and come to the conclusion that I’m confused by much of what is going on and feeling grateful that I’m not facing adolescence in this confusing and sometimes brutal world of online relationships.
Tinder is an online dating site owned by InterActiveCorp, a New York-based company that also owns the dating site Match.com, the search service Ask, and The Daily Beast news site. According to the company, 85% of its users are between the ages of 18 to 34. They also claim to have made 11 billion matches since launched in 2012. That’s a really big number. I don’t know if it means 11 billion marriages, or 11 billion dates, or 11 billion social media exchanges. However the numbers are counted, it is clear that there are at least tens of millions of users of the service around the world and it is being used by young adults as a way to meet others.
I’m not sure, but I believe that our young relatives who are getting married this summer met the old-fashioned way: face-to-face after being introduced by friends. Still they belong to a generation that is quite at home using electronic devices to assist with social functions such as planning dates and meeting new people.
It makes me grateful for the times of my own life. I met the woman who is now my wife at church camp. Our parents knew each other through church functions before we began dating. We attended the same college and shared a similar circle of friends. I didn’t have to spend an evening completing an online profile and wondering which photograph of myself to post to display my best features. I didn’t have to worry about the security risks of meeting a complete stranger through posts on social media. I never felt at risk for cyberbullying or pressure from people I had never met face-to-face. The world of the younger generation of our family is much more complex and difficult to navigate than was the case for our generation.
It is true that our generation didn’t always have success in forming lasting relationships. Although I have been fortunately blessed with a long and joyful marriage, five of the seven children in my immediate family have experienced divorce, some of them have had multiple divorces. I have plenty of friends whose “old fashioned” dating experiences were less than fulfilling and occasionally subjected them to abuse. I’m not trying to make the argument that the world has been somehow damaged by the advent of all of the different forms of social media. I’m just saying that it is different. My particular personality seems to be less well-suited to a social media world than that of some of the younger members of our family.
However, just as I have adopted some online shopping practices, I also find myself employing social media. I signed up for Facebook originally in order to keep track of a nephew who traveled extensively and posted pictures and travel reports on the site. I realize that that particular site is most popular among people of my own age, but I continue to use it as a way to make connections with others. Like many other things on the Internet, you have to endure quite a bit of useless information in order to get to the connections you want, but after a bit of a learning curve, you get better at skipping irrelevant information and getting to the pictures and news of people about whom you care. I’m still amazed at the number of friend requests I receive from people that I simply don’t know. I guess there are some cases in which we are friends of friends, but other times I simply can’t figure out any possible connection. My list of friends on Facebook is very short compared to most. On the other hand, I have a lot of friends with whom I connect in daily living.
Most days I’m so busy talking with the people in my life that I barely have time for my electronic devices.
I like it that way.