The first real social media network I joined was MySpace. Remember them? I have no idea as to what prompted me to join them. It was such a busy and crazy site that I had no clue what to do there so I didn't really get into it much.
A few years later my sister, who was a college student at the time, told me about Facebook and urged me to join. I didn't really see the need in joining another social media site, but I relented and joined anyway. Because I was an early adopter and most of my friends had not yet joined, I didn't really do much with the site. At the time, I only had a few friends on the site, namely, my sister and a few cousins, so I pretty much just set up a basic profile and really didn't hang around there much.
However, one day I received an email informing me that an old high school buddy want to be friends with me. I was so excited that I finally had a new friend! I logged in to accept her friend request, but the place still seemed pretty quiet, so I quickly forgot about Facebook. Months later the same friend sent me a message stating that I really need to log on and beef up my profile because a lot of our mutual friends from high school had now joined Facebook. From that point on, everything changed. Facebook became a place that I visited regularly and have grown to love.
If Facebook were to disappear from the face of the earth tomorrow, I wouldn’t be devastated. I wouldn’t miss all the app requests and the people in my stream who posts pictures of themselves all day. What I would miss though is:
- re-connecting with people from my past. I was able to find a lot of my old High School, College and Law School buddies on Facebook.
- being able to connect with close friends and family members who live far away. My family is pretty spread out. We’re all over the place. While most of my family reside here in the US, There are many who do not. Facebook allows me to see what’s going on in the lives of those friends and family members in Canada, the Caribbean, South America, Ireland and Australia.
- The Camaraderie. So many of the updates posted by my friends and family are just so much fun. I would miss not being able to jump in and add to the fun.
The next social media network I joined was Twitter. At the time, twitter was totally foreign to me. The timelines just moved so quick and I didn't really get it. It wasn’t until I started a new twitter account to go with my blog that I finally really learned what twitter was all about. Now, I actually prefer it over Facebook. It’s a place where I can get breaking news, personal opinions and instant answers to some of my most pressing questions.
If Twitter were to disappear from the face of the earth tomorrow, life would carry on. What I would miss though is:
- the ability to easily connect with brands. I can’t remember ever interacting with brands before joining Twitter
- having a voice. As an introvert, I sometimes find it hard to voice my opinion in real life conversations, but on Twitter, I find that I can either jump right into a discussion, or mull over issues and add my opinion later.
- making new friends. Yes, I know it’s hard to believe that people can make friends from a social media network, but it can and has happened for me. I have personally met a few of my locally based Twitter friends in real life and have been able to make an even deeper connection with them.
Could you imagine a life without social media? What would you miss if your favorite social media networks disappeared?
