What is the Point of Social Media?

Oh how the world has changed in just a few short years.

In January 2009 I had an old fashioned mobile phone and sent a few texts. I sent the odd email too. I used Amazon and Ocado, but did little else online on my old PC. I had no idea what a blog was. My children were 16 months and 4 months old. I was a stay at home mum and I spent my days chasing my tail. We walked to the shops most days, with Presley in a pushchair and Cash in a sling. I sat with my babies as I fed and played with them.

Skip forward to January 2012 and some things are still the same. I use my old-fashioned mobile phone to send a few texts. I send the odd personal email. I shop online, not just at Amazon and Ocado, but elsewhere on the internet for toys, clothes, electrical appliances and things I don’t really need from Lakeland. I'm still a stay at home mum. My children are now 4 and 3 years old and attend nursery for 15 hours per week. We walk to the shops and the park. I sit with my children at mealtimes and play referee when they fight over toys.

The big change in my life is social media. I have a smartphone and a laptop. I’m a member of Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, many forums and Blogger. I have over 500 blogs in my Google Reader.  I play Words With Friends.

I could, if I chose to, spend all day every day flitting around in my online life. Is social media a hobby, that can be put aside, or is it something more?

How did we keep in touch with our real-life friends before Facebook? Now we read their status updates and click ‘like’ or comment with a ‘dislike’ as appropriate, but are we really in touch with them or is Facebook a poor substitute for friendship? When did we last chat on the phone or meet up in person? And don’t get me started on Facebook’s appaling privacy record…

I sometimes find it bizarre that people tweet about the most personal of events. They ‘live-tweet’ births, deaths, accidents and relationship break-ups. It just seems a bit… needy to me. Are we all just attention-seekers looking for some kind of validation by telling the world that we’ve just thrown up, or that there are only thirteen sleeps until our holiday or that we’ve written an unmissable blog post?

Does a tree really fall in a forest if there’s no one there to Twitpic it and tweet ‘Timber LOL’?

Of course Twitter can be wonderful if you need advice. I have made some genuine real-life friends through Twitter and hopefully I have other friends there that I haven’t met yet, but I often feel like I’m wasting my precious spare time tweeting and chatting when I could be writing or learning to sew or even – yes, really – cleaning the house. Perhaps I don’t value these friendships as much as I should? I see other online friends chatting happily together every day and I feel left out. I wonder if I need to participate more. I wonder if they see me as their friend even though I don’t tweet daily. Can you have real friends in social media without that time commitment or is it a case of ‘out of sight, out of mind’?

I am incredibly nosy, that’s why I love reading blogs and looking at people’s photographs. I tend to lurk online more than participate (sometimes I simply don't have anything interesting to say) and I notice that some people seem to be online all day every day. Even Christmas Day. Surely this is the one day of the year when the online world should pale into insignificance as you spend time with your family. Live. Be in the moment. Step outside the social media bubble. Catch up with your online buddies another time.

I did an experiment over the holidays. I didn’t post anywhere online for 9 whole days. I spent time with my family. It was possibly made more special and private because I didn’t tweet about it. If I had told you that I made the best Christmas lunch ever (which I did), would you really care? I don’t think so. It would have been amusing to tweet that my mum bought me a meat thermometer for Christmas. You could have replied ‘I think she’s worried about the turkey ROFL’, but it would have taken both of us away from our children. I want to remember the look of wonder on Presley’s face when he came into our bedroom with his stocking on Christmas morning. He was too excited to speak. I’d have missed that if I had my phone in front of my face, jabbing away typing ‘7am and I’m the only one awake LMAO’.

I guess, as with most things in life, balance is everything. I sometimes think that life was simpler before social media. Perhaps I’m just being anti-social.

What do you think? Do we spend far too long online or is our real life online now? How do you get the balance right for you?

What is the Point of Social Media?

The Downing Tweet Christmas Party

Yes, that really is me standing outside Number 10 Downing Street!

I had the absolute honour of being invited by Sarah Brown (yes, that Sarah Brown, the Prime Minister's wife) to the Downing Tweet Christmas Party in aid of the Million Mums campaign.

I'm not entirely sure why Sarah invited me, although we have been following each other on Twitter since we both joined up around the same time earlier this year. Can I let you into a little secret? When Sarah followed me and told me about her Million Mums campaign *whispers* I didn't realise who she was. I didn't realise she was that Sarah Brown. Of course I soon worked it out. Ahem.

When the invitation arrived my boys, Presley and Cash, learned a new phase: "NO WAY" we all shouted for at least ten minutes!

Fast forward ten days and I have bought or arranged: train tickets, a hotel reservation, Baby Baby business cards, a dress, underwear, jewellery, make-up, a hair appointment and a sparkly new bag.

On the day all my travel arrangements fell into place. I even had time to have a quick drink with some fellow party goers before hailing a taxi and having the sheer delight of being able to say to the driver 'Downing Street please'.

Is this picture (courtesy of Mums The Boss) are: me, Sam from @MumsTheBoss, @ConfidentLadies, @nurseju_, @cocabeenslinky, @only1lucylocket and Helen from @MumsTheBoss

My excitement grew as we cleared security and approached probably the most famous address in the country. The Downing Street sign had been changed to Downing Tweet for the night. We then walked through the famous black front door.

Number 10 is ENORMOUS inside. It is a beautiful house. We climbed the stairs and looked in awe at the photographs of former Prime Ministers. At this point I got completely over-excited and had to calm down!

We entered the rooms the party was being held in and made our way to the bar (of course). The wonderful thing about this party was that there was no VIP section, we had all been invited as individuals and it was clear that everyone was delighted to be there. For most of us it was a once in a lifetime opportunity.

I chatted to so many amazing people. Some were existing Twitter friends, like @HelpSaveBees, others are Twitter friends now. I met many people from the White Ribbon Alliance and other charities. I met Downing Street advisers and events staff. I met journalists. I met some wonderful people. I also met a few people you may have heard of.

I bumped into Beverley Knight, who is beautiful and as friendly in real life as she is on Twitter. She was getting ready to sing and was worried the 200 guests wouldn't be able to hear her without a microphone.

Sam and Helen, from Mum's The Boss, and I got our temporary 'mum' tattoos. We got them on our arms. I notice that Caitlin Moran had one on her chest area! Krishnan Guru-Murthy had one on his face. Despite several washes my tattoo is still there in all its glory. I hope he managed to get his off before he next reads the news!

Here I am with the lovely Sam from Mum's The Boss. This is one of the official photographs from Sarah Brown's Flickr account.

I met the fabulous Gigi from MumsRock. She introduced me to former colleague Richard Bacon. I then met the very sweet Emma Freud and Kirstie Allsopp. Kirstie was lovely to talk to, so down to earth and sooo pretty. She introduced me to the very funny India Knight. We then were lucky enough to stand in the front row for Beverley Knight's knockout performance. No microphone, just an AMAZING voice.

Then came the highlight of a truly magical evening. Sam, Helen and I were lucky enough to be introduced to The Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

When Gigi later asked me what we talked about I couldn't remember - much to her amusement. I think a combination of the excitement and too much fizzy wine turned the whole experience into a bit of a blur. Sam and Helen reminded me that in our brief conversation he asked where we had travelled from and whether we were enjoying ourselves! Edit: I've also been reminded that we told him we'd arranged to stay in the same hotel via Twitter.

We then met the lady herself, Sarah Brown. She knew who I was! Thank you again for the invite @Sarahbrown10.

Here is Sarah's own account of the night.

There was just time for a good look round at the White Room and the glorious Dining Room before a quick trip to the ladies. Well it would have been rude not to!

Other famous guests, that I didn't speak to, were Claudia Winkleman, Peter Serafinowicz, Brian Friedman and Dr Christian Jessen. I'm gutted I missed Claudia, but all in all I did pretty well on the celeb-meeting front!

Sam, Helen and I eventually headed back to our hotel, took off our shoes, had a nightcap and went on Twitter!

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The Downing Tweet Christmas Party