Monday, April 08, 2013

7 Things: Better People Through Social Media

So, some early studies have determined that people who utilize multiple forms of social media, might be better employees.  Certainly early studies often find things that when later delved into turn out to have differing causes and effects than originally thought - witness this article about coffee that mentions some of the studies about ill effects of coffee turned out to be because the coffee drinkers were also smokers. But, just for fun I am going to spitball why this might be. 
1. Using multiple forms of social media teaches you that each one has it's own norms. 
2.  It also shows you the clear difference between those who act as if say, Linked in works just like Twitter. 
3.  Multi-tasking.  There might be jobs that exist where this is not required, but I'm pretty sure I've never had one, not even my summer jobs in retail and food. 
4. Social media also demonstrates how quickly a badly worded statement can turn into a fight.  Certainly one form could do that for you, it just might take longer.  Two days or so. 
5. It also teaches you to narrow in.  It's pretty easy for one's feed to get overwhelmed by one person, or some string of games and articles, so you get better at figuring out how to streamline what you really care about at that moment. 
6. Of course, it could turn out that people who spend a lot of time of social media are workaholics who use social media to make up for all the time they miss with their friends and family. (Fingers crossed that's not it.) 
7. As the article points out, it could also just be computer and internet savvy.  Some people still can't pronounce Pinterest yet, much less tell why one might be posting bacon recipes to it.