The Invasion of Social Media into Our Lives

The Invasion of Social Media into Our Lives

Dr. Linda Hancock

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr. Hancock has written a regular weekly column entitled “All Psyched Up” for newspapers in two Canadian provinces for more than a dozen years. Over the years, her readers and clients have said that they have benefited from her common-sense solutions, wisdom, and sense of humour. Dr. Linda Hancock, the author of “Life is An Adventure…every step of the way” and “Open for Business Success” is a Registered Psychologist who has a private practice in Medicine Hat. She can be reached at 403-529-6877 or through email office@drlindahancock.com

Published

October 27 2009

Just when you think that you have upgraded your computer and know how to make it work for you, there is something new in technology world. And with it comes a whole new language!

Let's just talk for a few minutes about one of the newest social media phenomena called TWITTER. You become involved by signing up for a free account at Twitter.com. This allows you to upload a picture of yourself and enter information into your profile. You have to consider what and how much you want to share with the world because once it is on the internet you are vulnerable to the world.

Perhaps you will want to "lurk" for a bit to learn what to do on Twitter. That means that you will watch what others are saying and doing. You can search for people who have the same geographic location, interests or just enter a "keyword" that will show you the options available.

Once you find a "peep" (person) who you want to learn about you will "follow" that person. This allows you to receive all of the "tweets" that person creates. A "tweet" is a message that is 140 characters or less that is randomly written by the "peep" you are following.

It is generally considered to be polite to "follow" those who follow you - a courtesy but, you can "unfollow" at any time.

As you develop your list of followers you will communicate somewhat as you would at a cocktail party with each person contributing their ideas and thoughts in short sentences. A tweet might be a statement, quotation or reference to a website or report.

What gets kind of crazy is that as more and more people follow you, the conversation becomes so rapid that you cannot keep up. You then can help to sort things out through tools like TweetDeck which sorts your peeps into groups. Other applications provide methods of sophistication. For example, TweetLater allows you to enter tweets that will be sent out at designated times. Tweetpic gives you an opportunity to add photos to your tweets. And the list goes on.

I opened a Twitter account in April and now have over 29,000 followers. There is absolutely no way that I could keep up with the conversations even if I wanted to do so. But I love it!

One day I sent out a tweet that stated: "Twitter is kind of like having a party line in a small rural community. When you get the wrong number, you end up having a good conversation and making a good friend". This was retweeted by others several million times. Kind of makes you feel important!

Social media is about connecting with others over the internet. Means you will never feel alone again.

What a unique way to communicate with others. But first you have to learn the language.

Well, I have to go now. Need to check my TweetDeck to see how many followers retweeting are.

Did you tweet your peeps today?