Sunday, February 21, 2010

Social Media Fatigue


I am not sure if its a medical condition (yet)... but there is an epidemic of Social Media Fatigue (SMF) spreading quickly throughout the country as we speak. Carriers are bringing the virus into our communities - and there is nothing we can do.

What are the symptoms?

1. Do you find yourself logging into Twitter less and less? Have you given up on MySpace completely?

2. Are you losing control of your Facebook Friendships? Did you break the promise to yourself to only ACCEPT people who are actually your friends? Do you occasionally look at your profile and wonder how the hell you have 673 friends?

3. Does your LinkedIn profile still have you working at a job you quit 2 years ago?

If you have these or similar symptoms... you are experiencing the early signs of SMF.

Social Media Fatigue is going to change the world as we know it...why? Because social media is expecting you continue to login 5 times a day, check your latest tweets, update your fan page, and share your photos with the entire network. If you stop - they begin to fade. And who is to blame for SMF - we are - the Users. We lost our way.... the second we looked at Social Media as a way to make money, the minute we accepted a friend request that wasn't a friend and the day we decided to stop logging every day.

How do we stop it? I am not sure we can... but...if there is an "antidote"... it is simple. We (as users) need to make social media applicable. We need to make it useful in making our lives easier and our world a better place. If we are going to fight SMF we need to be cautious of how we use social media....and more importantly if we do use it - let's not abuse it. Make relationships count. Make communications meaningful. Make the network a better place.

If nothing else ---- Give to the network more than you take....