The Truth about Social Media

Okay, I won't begin with how Twitter-beat-Facebook-beat-Internet-beat-TV in popularity quicker and quicker we already know that.
I'll start instead with how everyone is perplexed about this new animal in our digital barn: social media. As I write this, new social media agencies are being set up, articles are being written about this *phenomenon* (including this one), and the marketing pros are figuring out whether to suck at the Vampire widget or indulge in a Mob War to reach their target groups.

The point is, the buzz around social media is growing faster than you can say Bee.At the same time, some are wondering if its already the beginning of the end for a social media platform as big as Facebook (500 million users). Recently, Lane Wallace wrote in The Atlantic magazine that we may be at a stage where our initial, teenager-like fancy to FB is giving way to fatigue or boredom. Still, she admits that sites like FB and Twitter are becoming increasingly popular with 30-plus folks as well.

I think its a matter of how people behave online. We are creatures of habit, goes the saying. And habits take their own sweet time to form or change. Nevertheless, with a flood of interactive tools and games, especially on social media sites, peoples habits are shifting really, really fast and more and more people are connecting with each other and opening up their personas for the world to see (despite privacy concerns).

Theres one huge difference, though. Unlike earlier, when people used to interact mostly in segregated age groups and localities, in the virtual world theres a whole smorgasbord of pre-teens, teens and adult umpteens 'behaving' in all sorts of ways buying virtual goodies, commenting endlessly in threaded posts or reading fortune-cookie stuff (if you must know).

Personally, I feel that the new connectivity tools are bringing out the kids in adults just as they are allowing the young to quickly pick up wisdom or nonsense (theres enough of both in cyberspace). If anything, our age-tied and time-bound behaviours are being pummelled into a bigger dollop of possibilities giving us a glimpse of what communication and sharing will be like in the Web x.0 world.
And thats why there's so much complexity and perplexity around: Like with most tectonic changes, social media is a progressive case of profusion, confusion and, finally, infusion. So heres my unsolicited advice: instead of fretting over it, just sit back and enjoy the game on the screen or off it.

Sanjay Gupta is the Editor of Digit Channel Connect Magazine

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