Don't Blast Me -- I'm Just the Messenger

Here's An Easy Question and Answer

This little test should be a snap. What do e-mail, e-messaging, instant chat online, cell phones  – like Epics, Evos, and Blackberries -- Apps and Androids, Skype, twittering and tweeting, blogging, and “Facebooking” all have in common?

There are a couple of ways to answer. How you answer may hinge on how old you are. Or simply how tech savvy you have become, no matter how long you’ve lived. Or, better yet,  how ‘wired’ you are – though none of those things actually need wires to work.

I’d answer very simply, if I were you. They are forms of  social media. They are tools that help people – of all ages, all over the Earth – to communicate.

Social media tend to be intense. As in immediate, like here and now. Media such as texting, tweeting on Twitter, and blogging make the connectivity (that is, the messaging back and forth) between individuals  more ‘real time,’ easily-conversational, casual, up in your grill. This is now. This is the future too, folks. Welcome aboard. Connecting with others 24/7 through social media has docked in our port ‘o call. Mobile communications rule. ‘Web-based’ is here to stay. Digital has taken the day.

Yahoo, Hotmail, and America Online Are So 20^th Century

Want to be considered nowadays for bigtime lame-ness or premature geezer-hood?

Easy enough. Watch movies on a VCR. Listen to your Walkman or to vinyl records (though that is seen to be a very cool activity by a small percentage of hip music buffs and collectors). Capture cute pictures on film, instead of your phone. And – ooh, here it comes! – brag about how you really blaze your way, digitally, with G-Mail, Yahoo, or other e-mail.

Emerging trends in social media have raced so fast, during recent years, that even some young adult, 20-somethings at times feel a little lost, sadly old-school, out of touch.

Clearly, e-mail is not totally yesterday. It still works in many business situations. It’s useful when shopping online. And when you need to send information via file attachments. It’s also usually a good thing to scan (at least now and then) since teachers, businesses (like banks and airlines), bosses, older friends, and parents tend to make steady use of this modern tool.

In a December article for the New York Times, a journalist named Matt Richtel wrote about ‘the problem with e-mail’ among young kids today. He says, “It involves a boringly long process of signing into an account, typing out a subject line, and then sending a message that might not be received or answered for hours. And (it uses) sign-offs like sincerely — Seriously?”

Texting, instant-messaging -- called “m-ing” -- plus Skype-ing are experienced more as here, now, immediate, real. Time-eating steps -- as many used-to-be Yahoo and G-Mailers believe -- simply cuts off ‘users from what they crave: instant conversation.’

Richtel comments on the social media habits of youth like the totally e-savvy Lena Jenny – a high school senior from Cupertino, California. Lena notes that texting is so quick (and that means very good) that “I sometimes have an answer before I even shut my phone. E-mail is so lame.”

The monster-sized social network known as Facebook  is working to stay on top with the Lenas -- and Leonardos -- of today.  Facebook plans to soon bring the world a “revamped messaging service that is intended to feel less like e-mail and more like texting,” according to Andrew Bosworth, director of engineering at the company.

Broken English – Faster Than a Speeding Bullet

Things speed quickly. The beautiful and the artistic can get lost in a 4G texting universe – courtesy of Sprint, Verizon, and other communication companies

In that New York Times article by Matt Richtel, we learn about a 23 year-old accounting technician who works in New York. All day, this young guy, Adam, uses e-mail and traditional phone calls while doing his job. When he slips away from work, Adam communicates almost completely by texting via his cell phone. He’s pretty skilled at it.

But, to tell you the truthm -- his little brothers, at 12 and 19, are way better.  Awesome at it. Their messages (“txts”) are short, fast, pointed. The brothers leave Adam behind sometimes. “When they text me, it comes across in broken English. (Sometimes) I have no idea what they’re saying,” he notes. “I may not text in full sentences, but at least there’s punctuation to get my point across. I guess I’m old school.”

Yes. Only 23 years old and already feeling . . . out of it.

But – in all -- this is not just a story about the death of phone calls, written letters, e-mail, or the like. According to Dr. James Katz, the director for the Center for Mobile Communications Studies, at Rutgers University, “It’s more of a downgrade of these things, thanks to greater choice and nuance among communications tools.”

About young kids, with their e-mail accounts, and their Samsung phones , Katz claims . “It’s painful for them. It doesn’t suit their social intensity.”

Some people don’t like to hear this. Like one who writes books and blogs about social media, Judith Kallos. “We’re going down a (bad) road where we’re losing our skills to communicate with the written word,” she says. Sloppy structure, bad spelling, and upsetting grammar are the results.

But Katz adds that texting with one’s Smartphone, and using things like Facebook, tend to mirror how people really talk to each other in person. Brief phrases, abbreviations, “creative” spelling, and oddball words get used all the time. Prediction? Katz thinks that, soon enough, e-mail blasts will give way to “faster-twitch formats,” even among older people.

Three (Maybe Four) Ways to Think This Through

First. Watch the award-worthy film The Social Network. It’s about the invention of Facebook  – and all the drama that went into it. Talk with a friend, or friends, about what the movie says. Then, discuss how social media, web-based tech stuff, and digital dreams are changing our lives and culture.

Second. Look into some stats. Research says that social media usage is spreading world-wide, fast, and will continue to do so. Talk with friends about what these facts have to say:

n  Social networking now accounts for about 25% of all time spent online in the United States;

n  By late 2009, over 240 million people, age 13 and older, in the USA, had the use of mobile-comm tools like ordinary cell phones, Blackberries, Kindles, Tablets, etc.;

n  Twitter processed more than one billion “tweets” during in December 2009; it now averages about 40 million tweets per day;

n  One of four internet page-views in the United States occurred at one of the top social networking sites (such as Facebook) by early 2010 -- up from only 14 % a year before;

n  Social media users, age 65+, grew 100% throughout 2010. About 25% of senior citizens  now belong to Facebook, MySpace, or the like.

Third. On January 24, 2011, Pope Benedict XVI issued a statement from the Vatican on social media today. He spoke about the proper use of social media by individual Christians, the church, and the world. The statement has a long title. It is called “Message of Pope Benedict XVI for the 45th World Communications Day: Truth, Proclamation and Authenticity of Life in the Digital Age.”

Find it online here:
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/messages/communications/documents/hf_ben-xvi_mes_20110124_45th-world-communications-day_en.html

Take some time to read, think, and discuss this article. Compare Benedict’s points with the social media commentators and experts who are named, above.

Fourth. Well, this step is up to you. Go digital. So, my peeps, farewell, and . . .

Gud luk. Txt or m me when ur dun. TTYS. B real & c u l8er! 8-)