Social media

Thanks to Rachel for the inspiration for this post. I’d like to answer her question from her Day 12 Blogjune post: “What apps and social media do you use more now than in the past?”

What an interesting question!! I know instinctively that I’m not using the same social media mix as I used 10 years ago when Blogjune started. Back then I was a Twitter addict. These days I think I only seem to use Twitter as it links to other platforms such as WordPress or Instagram. I’m most likely to be found using Facebook , YouTube, Reddit and Instagram.

I’ve always been an early adopter. I think it’s something to do with being a librarian. In my case I’m an extrovert librarian with FOMO so I’m probably on every single platform you could think of!! And yes, I’ll acknowledge that I haven’t worked as a librarian for a few years now but I will always identify as one. I’m culturally a librarian in the same way some people are cultural Catholics. I still provide reference services. I still conduct searches and provide training in using databases, search strategy, referencing, and all manner of academic advice just like I did when I got paid to do so. (This looks like I should take this into another blog post!)

Back to my social media use. Here’s my timeline of adoption:

2001/2002 – Blogspot (and other blogging platforms and collaborative sites…did we call them wikis then?). This became Blogger, I think. I still have an account there and use it very rarely – mostly as a recipe collection.

2007 – Facebook, Twitter. Interesting note: the woman who inspired this post was one of the first people I added as a friend on Facebook. I think I am more into Facebook than I was in the beginning. In fact, I manage the Facebook accounts of a few different organisations as part of a small home business. Twitter has dropped off significantly for me though.

2008 – LinkedIn. I feel like having this is a waste of time bordering on active nuisance.

2010 – WordPress, YouTube. I dust off WordPress every June but I’m on YouTube every night. My daughter is very into YT Kids.

2011 – Instagram. My use of this has remained about the same.

2013 – Snapchat, Reddit, Pinterest, Tumblr. Snapchat for me was and always has been sporadic. I am on Reddit more now than I was in the beginning. I almost never use Pinterest anymore and I’d forgotten my credentials for Tumblr so that tells the story.

2016 – WhatsApp. Used at Christmas and birthdays for one person in particular.

2020 – TikTok. Definitely becoming a flavour of the month.

Let’s take a moment to remember the social media no longer with us or in some palliative state… StumbleUpon, Digg, Delicious, Foursquare, Vine, and many more. I enjoyed you and miss you. I know I have used other platforms but I honestly can’t remember. Like I said, if it existed I probably had an account.

I’m a daily user of Facebook, YouTube and Reddit. I keep wanting to tweet more but I used to use it professionally and I just don’t have as much to say about librarianship anymore and have even less inclination to listen to others! I do miss the connection and friendships I built there. I will forever have a special place in my heart for WordPress and Twitter and all under the banner of Blogjune…because that’s how I met the love of my life.

My mind is swirling with ideas and tangents from this post. I think I need to point out that it’s taken me the better part of 5 hours to write this. I feel very tired, scattered and foggy. I hope I have threaded together a somewhat coherent post. I’ll read this again tomorrow with a rested brain and see what kind of a mess this is. I feel like it might generate a few more posts so I can clear up my concepts in those.