May I start by saying that some of you are not going to like this post and some of you will no doubt sit behind your computer screen and stress your dismay to my opinions only to then share your comments with all your tweeters and facebook “friends” and so on and so forth. I am just having a Wednesday morning rant after my nightmare tube journey and pouring orange juice on my Jordan’s Country Crisp!

Unless you have been living in a cave for the last few years, you will all know what social media is and how big a role it is playing not only in our social lives but our business ones too and this is exactly what I am talking about when I say social media – the media to end all things social. Anti-social media we should call it.

As social media continues to grow, details are starting to surface about people’s behaviors and consumption of information in the social space.  Who is really benefiting? Is it improving our social lives or is it just improving the ways in which brands and the media can shove messages down our throats with no escape. Want some facts? Thought you might.

In a recent independent study by Retrevo Gadgetology it was found that over 19% of under 25’s wake up during the night to check their social networks and a further 32% check their social networks as soon as they wake up in the morning. Now that is some serious addiction, and the rest of the stats further demonstrate how addicted to social media our generation really are! (56%: Social media users check Facebook at least once a day for example). If you are reading this on your iPhone in the bathroom you can safely assume you are one of the addictives!

Unfortunately, we now belong to a generation that has embraced quantity over quality. It’s all about how many followers, friends, likes, members and shares we have but how many of those people can you actually call your friend? In a world where we spend the majority of our time tweeting, messaging, emailing, blogging and BBMing, there is little left over to actually say when confronted with a real-time encounter with a friend – they have already read, watched or seen where you have been, who you been talking to and what you have been up to.

Wall-e Fat People

So what am I really getting at? The scene above from a recent Pixar film, Wall-E, is what I am getting at. The death of the old-fashioned world as we know it, those interactive acts that are in danger of becoming almost obsolete: the face-to-face, one-on-one relationship.  As children we were warned against the dangers of talking to strangers and yet in the new world of micro blogging and social profiles we now openly have conversations and give away our personal lives willy nilly for no other reason than the fact we think we are being more social.

The sad fact is that we are not. There is a fine line between using social media to help improve our real social lives and social media taking over our real lives, where on the line do you sit?

I am by no means saying social media is bad, that would be silly thing to say and after all it is my job! All I am saying is have a think about how you are using your social networks in your personal life. Is it replacing your face-to-face relationships is it helping to build them?

Feel free to let me know your thoughts