Imagine ... a life without Social Media

Lots of great data and research is available on numbers of users for various social media, often broken down by social media type as well as user demographics, including country, age, gender.

I love these statistics and analysing how different demographic groups show different levels of enthusiam for social media. Alex Trimpe's video below provides a wonderful short overview of how pervasive social media, i.e. in this case Facebook, have become in our lives.


The World Is Obsessed With Facebook from Alex Trimpe on Vimeo.

However, the real question lurking behind all this is, of course, WHY do people use and/or not use social media ?? And here, I am in particular referring to private as opposed to business use as the latter can usually be relatively easily explained in terms of marketing ROI.

In Germany, I know a number of people that are reluctant users or indeed non-users. In another conversation the other day, the person I asked about their vehement refusal to jon Facebook answered my question (typical Irish!) with another question, i.e. why should he use social media when life was possible without them and indeed had been fine without them ?

The latter statement, of course can be said about a lot of things, ranging from the introduction of toilets (okay, I admit, maybe a somewhat krass example - who you really want to go back to the time before their existence ?) to more recent and maybe less life-critical inventions, such as the radio, the television, the phone, the mobile phone.

So, is taking a stance against social media the reaction of a luddite or that of a pragmatist ?

My own view, would be it is a bit of both. There is no harm initially resisting and in particular questioning new technological phenonema that have the potential to dramatically impact and change daily life. However, I think you also need to be open to change and evaluate the pros and cons brought about by a technology. The latter is a characteristic I often miss in those people that show a strong resistance, often combined with a lack of experience with the new technology.

Would I be able to live without social media ? Yes, I would and I would be so delighted at the bit of extra time I freed up in my busy schedule: Finally time to catch up with friends again, some local friends who I can meet for a coffee or indeed finally time to phone the more remote friends I have in other countries ... So, no social media, less sitting at the PC. Lots of changes to HOW I do things ... but would it dramatically change WHAT I do ? Probably not...

So, what is your view ? Can you live without social media ? And most importantly, what are your reasons for using or indeed not using social media ?