This Sunday, I spent a grand total of SIX hours researching and learning more about social media. I downloaded presentations, joined networks related to other networks and spent hours reading about stuff I never thought would interest me. Somewhere between signing up for Twitter directories, following experts and adding blog upon blog to my Reader account, something hit me like a truck:
I’ve become a nerd. Not just any kind of nerd, but a VERY scary nerd – the nerd that is nerdy for no reason.
I mean, why social media? I’m a college student. I’ve taken a grand total of 1 PR class, and most of my experience in the field revolves around design more than anything else. I should be out having fun and making money. I’m in a fraternity. I listen to and play music. I have a girlfriend. Yet, somehow, I sat in my room transfixed by the Internet.
I still am refusing to believe that the Internet is THAT powerful, if only for the sake of my journalism friends that will have their worlds turned upside down any moment now. I don’t have a brand to manage, I don’t work for a corporation desperate to be followed, I have no Fan Pages to send messages to. I’m just reading and learning. Why?
I think it’s because that I know, eventually, this stuff is going to matter. The toys of today become the tools of tomorrow (well, except if you’re Myspace). Facebook, when I was entering college, was just on the brink of opening up to non-collegiate people. Now, well, it’s everywhere. I remember first hearing about Twitter from when the Ball State Daily News used it to cover a trial and thinking it was a joke.
Right now, I fell like a total geek. Hopefully, I’ll learn enough that, in the future, all the time and energy (debatable) I’ve spent on how to use social media will pay off.
No related posts.
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
0 Responses to “Bold realization”