As is usually the case around this time most mornings, I am up to my eyeballs in social media.
I am furiously updating our website, DelcoTimes.com, writing this blog, The Heron's Nest, tweeting, and posting both on the DelcoTimes.com Facebook page as well as my personal Facebook page.
Welcome to the world of social media.
It’s not just communicators and journalists, either. It's everywhere. Yoy have to check in every time you go somewhere on FourSquare. Laws are being enacted to get us to put down our cell phones instead of texting while driving. We are boiling life's most intricate situations to 140 characters. Our personal lives suddenly become very public on Facebook. A new study this week indicated that teens’ preferred method of conversation is actually texting. That’s right, they don’t actually talk on their smartphones. They just send a text.
Tonight on our live-stream Internet broadcast ‘Live From the Newsroom,’ we’re going to delve into the world of social media, and the profound effects it is having on our society.
Simply put, it is changing the way we communicate. It certainly has changed the way my industry delivers the news.
To be honest, my biggest challenge most days is finding some time to get the hell away from it. To shut down the laptop, put down my phones (both of them!) and just breathe. It’s not easy as it sounds. The intrusion of social and other media into our everyday lives is having huge effects on our society, not all of them good.
I will be joined by Lisa Bien, a marketing consultant whose speciality is in media relations and an expert in social media and adjunct professor at Temple University, as well as Media psychologist Mike Madden. They'll talk about the pros and cons of social media, including what you really must know to effectively use this powerful new media, as well as the pitfalls you should be aware of before making the leap.
More importantly, I’d like you to join the conversation. If you have a topic you’d like to see us cover, email me your suggestion to editor@delcotimes.com. Or you can fire me off a tweet to @philheron.
That is if I can find it in the ocean of information I wade through each day.
Join the show tonight at 7 on DelcoTimes.com and take part in our live chat.
Don’t sit on the sidelines. What is it about social media that you like, dislike? What can’t you live without? And what effect do you think it is having on society.
Get engaged! Join the conversation. We’ll ‘chat’ tonight at 7.
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