I find it fascinating what the internet can do for us. We can find out someone’s entire public background, the definition of an unfamiliar word, the biography and credentials of the author of an article you enjoyed, all with a stroke of the keyboard. We can find the entire history of almost anything, people, world events, art forms, concepts. It’s amazing. It’s almost incredible, when you stop to think about it.

Just the other day, I read a piece in the newspaper which used two words I didn’t know. So, I looked them up, quickly, easily. I learned the meanings, read the history of the words. This gave me much clearer perspective on the article as a whole, understanding the words as used within the author’s specific context.

I think we sometimes that we take things for granted – such as the tremendous opportunity to use the internet to our advantage, as opposed to simply cruising around social media – which often results in losing hours and hours of our time, to little or no advantage at all.

I believe the future of social media will be smaller, more focused and cohesive groups, not the big, wide swaths in which we lose ourselves for hours. Closely held communities, in which members share a vested interest in learning more on a given subject.

One could join more than a few such groups, and leverage them productively to the benefit of our understanding, rather than losing the time we spend.

What ideas do you have about the future of social media? What social media pitfall are you most prey to? And how do you snap yourself out of it?

Please click here to email me directly – I would love to hear your ideas, your stories.

Until next Wednesday –

Peace,

Eric