Independent Thinking Blog

Social Is No Longer a Destination

Facebook might have started out as a destination platform. But it and all social media are becoming increasingly integrated into our lives.

Consider this example (from my election night experience). It’s a little after 11:00 p.m., and the television talking heads are discussing election returns:

“Race is called! Pick up the phone and dial mom. No answer. Grab the smartphone to tweet out congratulations to the president. Start skimming my Twitterstream. Phone rings. It’s my brother. He’s doing the same thing. Tweeting-talking-TV. Retweeting. Replying to tweets and retweets. Reading select tweets aloud to each other. Arguing about meaning. Alerted by the Twitterverse that something entertaining is happening. Switch channels midstream…”

Does this sound familiar?

According to Twitter:

“One hundred million votes and 31 million tweets later, Election Day 2012 has come to a close. As the results of the election were called by news organizations, the conversation about the election on Twitter surged, hitting a peak of 327,452 tweets per minute. Before President Obama took the stage to address the nation, he shared a special update on Twitter. As thousands of supporters cheered in Chicago, more than 455,000 (and counting) retweeted his celebratory message.”

And that’s just Twitter.

Social is in our DNA.  

Maybe it’s not election night for you. Maybe it’s the Grammys. Or the Superbowl. Or the World Cup. Or the Arab Spring. Whether we’re watching history or making it, we’re increasingly sharing our thoughts and pieces of our lives online.

Photo by Bob MacInnes (Flickr).

You May Also Like