Micro analysis: Social media according to different age groups
Jacob: I’m kinda in the middle of something right now, but can I text you later?
Girl at club: can you what?
Jacob: are you online at all?
Girl in club: I have no idea what your talking about
Jacob: How do I get a hold of you?
Girl at club: you come find me
Jacob: that sounds…exhausting!
For those who haven’t seen it, I just quoted one of my favorite scenes from Hot Tub Time Machine, where a group of friends discover a hot tub that’s a time machine and travel back in time to the 80′s before the mobile phone and the internet became widely available.
Now, back to he 21st century. Its the year 2011 and social media has taken over. Can you imagine how inconvenient your day would be if you had to spend it without your cellphone? I’d personally feel unsafe and so alone!
To some people, social media goes only as far as instant messaging and keeping in contact with people you know. They don’t aknowlege the influence social media has on everything from advertising and shopping to politics and education.
As social media is only about a decade old, it’s expected that people from different age groups use it differently; some more than others and the elder less knowlegable than the youth. To get an idea of how different age groups use social media, I asked 5 people from 3 different age groups the following question: How do you make use of social media? All 5 interviewees Had one thing in common: they were either studying or worked in a studious environment.
First up is 15 year old Bilal Abdullah, an ACS student. Bilal has a Blackberry, he uses BBM more than any other social media tool mainly to keep in contact with friends and also get homework assignments. He claims that his school does not integrate social media in the curriculum.
Next there is Rana Abdullah, an interior design student at LAU.
Rana’s medium of choice is Facebook. She uses it to keep in touch with friends overseas, and to store her photos. Interestingly, Rana gave in to the Blackberry fad and bought, even though she doesn’t really like it. She decided to get one because her all her friends have one. Rana finds that social media has become a way of life for her; she uses it for work and to socialize.
Rafi .M. a psychology student at LAU doing his Masters in education. Rafi believes that social media is “anti-social”. He does not trust social media and believes that it does the opposite of connecting people.
Mona Hamood, a political science student at LAU stressed on how convenient social media is to her daily life. She believes everything she needs is at the touch of a button. She can work, study and socialize at the same time.
Finally, Houeida Kammourie-Charara, and Electronic Resources Librarian at LAU depends on social media to do her job. Ever since LAU adopted social media on their website, she has been able to reach out to students more effectively through LAU’s facebook page. There are currently 1800 students who have joined this page. Anything involving LAU, including the library can be accessed through the facebook page. Houeida also uses SM on a personal level. Word is that ipads will be available to students begining Spring 2011. When technology is available, it encourages students to take advantage and learn.
Note: an LAU twitter page is also available
In Bilal’s case, his school has not taken initiative to teaching students how to take advantage of social media. It made me think: Do any schools in Lebanon have a social media program? and if so, is it compulsory like English or Math? Teaching kids to use social media in school can lead to more productive work in the future.
Rana and Mona seem to be the average social media users. Socializing and research are their main interests, unlike Rafi who claims to be anti-social media. Rafi represents a significant part of the Lebanese population: Those who believe social media is nothing more than a social tool, and harms human interaction. I noticed he never reffered to how SM could be used for work or education. I think its safe to assume that the less knowlegable people are about SM, the less involved they tend to be, which in turn leads them to believe that social media is something negative (I base my opinion on more than just Rafi’s reply, although he is the only one i got on video)
Contrary to popular belief, I’ve noticed the younger the interviewees are, the less social media savy they seem to be. In this case, the most knowlegable happened to be Houeida. However, I am sure this does not apply to everyone from her generation.
Over all, we live in the age of technology and most of us (including myself before LAU Social) have little knowlege about social media. Advanced social media users in Lebanon are usually those who learn on the job (excluding the exceptions) If schools made it a point to teach students more about social media, then students can use their skills to excel in other ways much earlier in their lives.
