What does Social Media mean to you?

My husband and I own and run a software company in Vancouver. We specialize in social media solutions for clients who want to find new or better ways to connect and interact with their clients. One of the things about being in social media is that you need to consume it to understand it.

I didn’t agree with, or perhaps I should say I didn’t understand, this statement as much when I was a teacher. It seemed that David was always in front of his computer, laptop or attached to his phone. The day he bought a Blackberry was bittersweet. Sweet technology, but it was, literally, a crackberry for him. What I failed to appreciate at the time was that the device let him do a lot more with me out of the office than what he might have been able to do 10 years earlier while running two start up companies. And upon my insistence, he did make the effort to put the phone away more when we were out.

Three years ago, at the end of my maternity leave, I came to work at David’s company and, as my exposure to the social media world progressed, I got a Blackberry. Then I started a blog. Then I joined Twitter. Most evenings after the kids are tucked away, in the 1-2 hours of downtime I have before bed, I find myself still in front of the computer even though I spend the work day behind one.

Those are the hours where I might previously have read a book, baked something in the kitchen, scrapbooked, or watched mindless tv.

As the world gears up for BlogHer’09 and people step out from behind computers to meet and mingle in the flesh, I wonder about how my social media world will crash into my “real life” one. We are rarely ever the person we seem in our Twitter, blog or other online personalities. I wonder about being so connected to people whom I rarely, if ever see, in the flesh. How will that connection shift and change in real time? Social media has introduced a whole new world of people to me. But our interactions are framed in a context vastly different from “traditional” human socialization.

What do you think about the advent of social media in your life? How has it changed your world? Has it changed who you are or how you behave?

:: This is an original Canada Moms Blog. More navel gazing available here ::