The social medium...

Paula, my friend/business partner/fully paid-up member of Lou's 'general compass to the world' told me that she had read an article about mothers and social media. The gist was that there were perils in social media to modern mothers; that women like me (us?) relied on contact through Facebook and such like to maintain friendships, but that crucially those friendships were insufficient. I get the sentiment of this observation. I often consider how as recently as the 1990's no one even had a phone let alone existed through it like some sort of cyborg. I can recall, the week I graduated university, that we sat in a Bristol pub and significantly: two mobile phones were placed on the table. The modern equivalent of throwing down the gauntlet. Look at me; I can communicate when out and about. This was so revolutionary! I can also recall at about the same time, my husband's (then boyfriend) brick-sized mobile phone was stolen from his car overnight. Little did we know how vital the item was that it would be searched out in an empty car, like an open wallet.

But social media is so important - beyond important; it is defining in a way that nothing has been before. In every element of life.

via pretty stuff

I read blog posts like this and rejoice - at last some understanding of the modern mother as she goes about her day. Some recognition of the fact that iphones have facilitated life in a way that was unimaginable even a few short years ago.

But I also consider that on a weekly basis friends of mine text me and say 'I read the blog - whassup?' or 'I read the blog; wow I didn't know that about you'. I find myself wishing that all of my friends wrote blogs as it would make it so much easier to keep up with what everyone is doing. It's an extension of Facebook which delivers holiday photos and status updates. Blogs go into the wider picture. Yet a blog post does not come close to a telephone conversation or...heavens above...to meet face to face.

I am sure that as social media has burgeoned, many friends have ceased meeting up or speaking. I don't really know what to do with that piece of information. I know that the gnawing feeling that I miss my oldest friends does, at times, surge up in the realisation that we no longer speak or meet (enough or at all). Yet somehow we are connected; through email or another app that enables us to cross each others' paths as the days go by.

But whether it's a help or a hindrance, I can not imagine life without social media. It would be a place that was not enriched. I am reliant on all of these methods of communication; not least when Boo posts a 'selfie' on Instagram and I get a little window into her world when she is away from me for the day. You can't knock progress, it is a tidal wave that we can not hold back, so we must embrace it; but knowingly.

via here