Are you addicted to Social Media? Or, just engaged?

We all know of or have been associated with addictions of one sort or the other. A simple web search for common addictions will bring up the usual suspects: alcohol, nicotine, drugs, gambling, and sex. Sex addiction got a lot of airtime over the past couple of years when the likes of Tiger Woods, Jesse James, and Eric Benét publicly admitted to this addiction when confronted with the evidence of their infidelities.  

Are we ready to throw social media addiction into the above mix of disorders?

It is a little complicated.

To begin with, the addictions listed above have no positive traits associated with them. There are no benefits to smoking or gambling when done even in moderation! While alcohol may have some supporters, in general, the health benefits attributable to it are minimal and often debatable.

On the other hand, social media is the way of the future!

Businesses and individuals are adopting Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn in droves. Expanding your social media circle and engaging with your friends, followers, and connections will help grow your influence in the community that matters to you – business or otherwise. Social influence could become the currency of the future!

A quick self-assessment will let you determine if you are comfortable with your level of engagement or, not. There are no shrinks here. If you are not violating your company’s policies or jeopardizing your family and social life, you are doing fine.

If you believe that you are not addicted to social media, check out the following statements.

–          You check your Twitter streams every chance you get

–          You “like” or “comment” on a lot of things you see on your Facebook timeline

–          You feel you are missing out when you cannot get online for a few hours

–          You check your Klout score after every comment or re-tweet that you receive

–          The first and last thing that you do every day has something to do with social media

–          You share everything with your social media friends

–          You feel that you are more extroverted with social media

The behaviours listed above are often considered obsessive or, in other words, addiction-like!

In my view, the risk of over-sharing is real. Everything else is subjective in nature and best left to the individuals to decide for themselves. After all, if you are to believe the esteemed professors who wrote the article “The Making of an Expert” it takes ten years or ten thousand hours of practice for anyone to get good at something.  So go on your merry ways and make the best use of social media!

Learning from your personal social engagements and translating that in some meaningful way to your work environment will stand you in good stead in the future. If you do feel that you need a little help with your over-indulgence, you can try this Facebook-slap approach or something similar! A recent article in Technorati.com posed the question “Do we prefer social media over sex?”

Who am I to judge?

Note: Please add your comments to let me know if you agree with my views or, have a different take on this subject.

5 Comments

  1. Hi Dax,

    Rather than calling it an addiction, I will call Social Media as a must have for today’s professional – more so if one happens to be in Marketing or Technical fields. Unfortunately, the rapid surge of Social Media has resulted in an assumption that everyone is well versed and there is a dearth of articles explaining the basics and how to get started. You are doing a great job addressing it – wish there were more like you.

    Thanks,

    Upen Shah

  2. I don’t classify social media as an addiction whatsoever. I think information, opinions and shared content are very positive, and a natural evolution in the information era. The world is a better place because we have the ability to express our ideas and also absorb those of others, often in passive settings like Facebook and Twitter.

    Dax, you are correct to assert that social media is the currency of the future. I would argue that it’s actually the currency of the present. To contemplate stopping this inevitability would be like trying to stop a freight train barrelling down the tracks on greasy rails. It’s not gonna happen.

    My advice would be to embrace social media, use it and enjoy it. All of a sudden, everyone has a voice. Everyone can be heard. For free. I think it’s amazing and the last thing I want to do is control my exposure.

  3. In my view, like everything else on your list, addiction is a subjective thing. What makes it beneficial is if it is productive to you and “here again one man’s bread is another man’s poison.” I am personally not that big on social media, I use it to catch up on conversations and opinions & sometimes contribute, but have not yet found the time to contribute to everything and anything!

    As much as it is a moderation issue it is also an accessibility issues. As content gets more and more accessible is personal media devices, unlike times when I grew up, TV was it (at best) and later in life the web on a computer, but you still had to share the device. These days you own a personal device that almost becomes an extension of your mind to your world instantly. This is life style/habit changing technology!!!

    • Thanks Ajit. No question about the impact technology has on the proliferation of social media. At the end of the day, social media does not kill you, unlike cigarettes, drugs and alcohol.

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