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December 02, 2008
The Social Media Living Room: A place to Meet and Make New Friends
Back in High School, it was my “home room” where new people came into my life each school year. In my home room there would be familiar friends from the past school year, as well as new friends to meet and embrace throughout the year. Home Room was where my attendance was noted and my school day started from.
And while it has been years since I’ve been in High School, in all these years, nothing seemed to replace the feeling of being in my homeroom. This all changed for me back in the Spring of 2007 because of the people whom I have met and interacted with on a daily basis on Facebook and Twitter. These days, each morning when I start my social media day, I am once again have that feeling of being in a home room, just in my case it is a virtual one and the feeling is more like being in a living room.
My new spot is a place where there are people who want to be there and people who are available 24/7 regardless of our physical location. We are living in a flat world. A world were I find myself staying more in touch with people that I'm connected to on these platforms than just about anyone else in my life. Much more than I ever expected was possible.
There are times when I feel like I just arrived in my virtual home, closed the door and walked into the living room to check out what was going on. This is why I call this my “Social Media Living Room.” In my Social Media Living room there are always people to catch up with and since my friends are geographically distributed, there are generally a group of friends on-line no matter where I am in the world, regardless of the time of day or place. Sometimes all we do is share our presence, other times we share information and small talk. However, the overall live experience and feeling of being connected with these people is something significantly different that what I had ever experienced before on the Internet.
Throw in Facebook status updates and the sharing of pictures from events my friends have attended and just the overall feeling of connectedness and you can start to feel the magic these platforms are having at least in my life. Facebook and twitter together have created a meta virtual social world (in my mind) where can I conduct one on one social communications with just about anyone. I am able to use these platforms to get to know my friends better and feel more connected with events going in their lives.
These days I experience my social media living room on weekday mornings around 6AM (EST) when I am home in New York and I happen to be on both twitter and Facebook at the same time. Using social media I am able to start a conversation using one platform and seamlessly carry the conversation back and forth across various platforms, even email.
Everyone is welcome to my social media living room. Hope to catch up with YOU soon.
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What about you? Are you having a similar feeling or common experience? Please share your thoughts in the comments below.
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Readers of my blog are invited to join me on both twitter and Facebook.
Tags: twitter, facebook, Social Media, Social Media Living Room, Jeff Pulver
Posted by jeff on December 2, 2008 08:06 AM | Permalink
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Comments
Great post. I have noticed a serious uptick in social networking awareness and participation among my mostly 30-something to 40-something crowd of friends and relations that started when people realized it was a great way to keep up with/stay excited about the election. Now it has carried over and I'm hearing and reading much more about the daily stuff of people's lives. It's a virtuous cycle, I think. The more bits each person contributes, the more valuable it is for everyone to participate more themselves. I blogged about it, riffing off og a scene from "Mad Men," the other day at http://gravitationalpull.net/wp/?p=527
Posted by: Aaron Pressman at December 7, 2008 09:38 AM
ofcourse social media is a good place to gather friends and support .I totally agree with your point !
www.iwebforums.org
Posted by: gopi at December 3, 2008 02:07 PM
Thanks for this post. I certainly feel happy each time I see something written by you on twitter and that gives me a sense of a global - yet cosy - shared living room. Even though I am in the UK, you in the US, and we have never met in offline life. Sharing of ideas, interconnectedness - and the sense of being able to connect with those whose ideas I find interesting [rather than only those who share location, social class or other social markers with me] is just a new quality to life, something I missed dearly when I was growing up and the living room used to be dominated by patriarchal hierarchies and reflected in patterns of debate. My social media living room is one of my favourite places in these days - great metaphor, Jeff.
Posted by: Britta Bohlinger at December 2, 2008 08:29 AM
Stirred up a lot of memories Jeff - love this blog post.
Mark
Posted by: Mark Harai at December 2, 2008 08:08 AM
Stirred up a lot of memories Jeff - love this blog post...
Mark
Posted by: Mark Harai at December 2, 2008 08:07 AM
Hi Jeff -
Love this concept - I feel the same way although I differentiate between Facebook - where I keep in touch with people I already know or get in touch with people I once knew - and Twitter where I meet a lot of new people through conversations. The difference? Whether to follow someone I need their permission? Twitter allows me to follow anyone I happen to find interesting as long as their stream is public and that makes it radically different than the other social networks out there - and valuable in a different way. So it's my living room (Facebook) vs. the local pub (Twitter) for me!
Rachel
Posted by: Rachel Happe at December 2, 2008 08:03 AM
I am definitely having the same experience. When I was growing up, home room wasn't accessible to me though. I could never join in on the many conversations floating around the room at school. With the written medium on the 'net, I'm a full participant and really enjoying this access. I've met people from all over that I certainly wouldn't have had the opportunity to meet and chat with otherwise.
Posted by: Karen Putz / DeafMom at December 2, 2008 07:57 AM