January 12, 2011

Social media lessons from the year I spent in bed.

by Jennifer Kane

Social media lessons from the year I spent in bed.

2007 was a big year for social media…*

  • Twitter took off at SXSW with tweets tripling during the conference from 20k to 60k per day.
  • The microblogging platform, Tumblr, was born.
  • Facebook hit a growth spurt with over 1 million new users signing up per week, 200,000 per day.

2007 was a big year for me too…it was the year I spent in bed.

Instead of watching social media leak into our collective consciousness, in 2007 I took an unplanned social sabbatical from the world and the life I had been living.

I won’t bother you with the particulars of why this happened, except to say that I had a baby and it caused some physical complications and, shortly thereafter, part of my spine ripped open.

It was then that a second offspring came into my life – a shadow of pain etched into my back that has been my companion ever since.

So my 2007 began with me unable to work upright, overwhelmed with an infant I could not physically care for and the prospect of lots and lots of time on my hands.

Oh my friends, there was so much time for me to carry in 2007.

My "office," circa 2007.

As you can imagine, my year in bed was long, painful, lonely, depressing and very, very boring.

There was none of this in my life then…the tweets, the blog, the goofy Facebook quizzes, the movies streaming from Netflix, the iPad to enable me to read on my side, or you – people whom I know or don’t know, offering to act as an audience for my thoughts

None of it.

But it was that year in bed that eventually attracted me to all of these things, once I knew they existed.

And I believe it was also that year in bed that led me to a greater understanding of why other people are drawn to social media, too.

1. People need distraction from themselves.

You think social media breeds narcissism? Try spending all of your time by yourself, focused on yourself. During my year in bed, I mostly lived in my own head. And I gotta tell you, unless you’re a monk, that much self-reflection isn’t necessarily a good thing. Yes, social media exposes us to a lot of people airing and reveling in their personal baggage. But it also serves as a continual reminder that the world is much bigger than we are. I’m inclined to think that this is a better concept to meditate upon all day than the dreary details of how much we think our own lives suck.

2. Epiphanies are more powerful when they are educated.

I’ve always been a person who dreams up “big ideas,” and my year in bed was no exception. But those epiphanies were birthed inside a vacuum, educated mainly by daydreams and conjecture and often standing miles away from an implementation opportunity. Social media however, gives us unfiltered, continuous access to new information all day long that we can consciously and unconsciously squirrel away in our brains and stew upon for strokes of insight. This endless field of information is far more fertile ground, not just for good ideas to sprout, but also for them to grow.

3. People want to share.

In 2007, I began a lot of stories with, “Today, on Oprah…,” and my husband, God love him, sat and listened to every last one of them (and yes, I realize now that he was bored to tears). Stories are the bedrock of our relationships, the currency we exchange to show people that we’re invested in them. Without them, our social interactions feel bankrupt. People are attracted to social media because it gives us a place where we can share our stories. It also offers the promise of an audience of listeners and the hope that someone in that audience will hear our voice and reach out in return to answer, “I hear you…I see you…I understand.”

4. Reality is subjective.

When you spend a lot of time in seclusion, a schism develops between your world and the world out there. The more you feel that your world is not “normal,” the more you start to romanticize the lives of everyone else. I’ll admit that social media does encourage some of this “grass is greener” behavior. Sometimes I get depressed when I read people’s posts about how AWESOME their lives are and I think, “Why are these people able to live normal, pain-free lives and not me?” But social media also exposes me to people who are frustrated, confused, hurt, scared, angry or envious. Those voices comfort me and remind me that the reality is that everyone’s “normal” is just a little bit messed up, whether they want to admit it to the world, or not.

5. No one wants to be alone.

My greatest fear is that someday I’ll need to repeat my year in bed. (And it’s a sure bet that I will – we all will someday, for what are our final twilight years, but a series of goodbyes ushered from the comfort of beds?). But I wonder what that experience would feel like now that I have the gift of conversation at my fingertips? I think “social media” is simply a term we’re using to label the process of people figuring out online what it means to be human. Ultimately, it has nothing to do with being “social” all the time. It’s about not being so alone.

So, that’s what I learned from my year in bed, (that, and so much more) and my life has been forever changed by the experience…

Today I appreciate each step I take outside my house.

Today I breathe in conversations and community like the air that they are.

Today I no longer carry time, but instead, stand in front of it, like a child at the entrance to an amusement park, looking over her shoulder to her parents, shouting, “Come, on! We have to go. There is so much to see!”

*Statistics from Skloog blog infographic, “The History of Social Media.”


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  • Great post, Jen! Thanks for sharing something so personal. Again, you really have a way of making SM relative…Kudos!

    • Thanks for the comment. I was worried the analogy might be a stretch, but it felt right in the end. And yes, in the end, the healthy kid was the more important thing. Like most moms, I’d rather bear the pains of this world then see her new soul saddled with any.

  • Excellent post. I know what you mean by, “Today, on Oprah”. I ruptured a disc in June, and I haven’t worked at my normal job as a truck driver since. My girlfriend comes home from work and before she walks in the living room, sometimes she’ll say, “turn it to channel 11, no more stock market channel today.” I’ve been able to learn a lot about Twitter because of this, and I’ve met great new friends, too. I hope your condition gets better with everyday and I’m glad your little one is healthy. Give me a follow @secretcoffeeshp. Hope to see you on Twitter!

    • Thanks for reaching out (I followed you back on Twitter too) always happy to make a connection with a fellow back injury person. If you ever want to talk procedures or pain, do send me an email. I’ve been dealing with back issues for over a decade, so I know the ropes 🙂 Also, my parents live in St. Cloud. Maybe next time I’m in town I can stop by for some coffee.

      Hang in there. Sounds like you’re making some fine lemonade with those lemons!

  • What a great post – I had no idea this was part of your history. I am amazed by your strength. It’s pretty great that you found a way to let the lessons learned during that huge challenge contribute to your passion for social media. Bravo!

    • Thanks. I don’t really talk about it much. But I know sometimes that is a problematic choice to have made (I turn down A LOT of coffee meetings and fear that sometimes people just think of that as me being snobby). Maybe this post will help with that. We’ll see. I appreciate your reading it and sharing your thoughts.

    • Well I see on Facebook that today you have a fat lip and a dead car. So I’m impressed that you’re not only taking time to read people’s blog posts, but commenting too 🙂

      Thanks for your kinds words. I hope you day improves and that all is well with that cute kid of yours.

  • Great perspective Jen! It puts into context how big and complex the word “Social” is and it is not just attaching a different word to the end of it to figure things out. Thank you Jen!

    • Thanks Keith. That’s what I was going for. (Plus I had some pressure on me after that last dreams & reality post…couldn’t really follow that up with “5 Things You Should Know About Twitter Success!” or something schmarmy like that 🙂 So I figured I’d take a more personal approach.

      As always, your tireless cheerleading is a joy. I appreciate it!

  • I stayed in bed for a weekend once. 🙂

    That’s one heck of a story and experience Jen. For many, it takes a lot of guts to share personal info like that. But it helps people to get a better idea of who you are – especially if they don’t have any IRL time with you.

    • Well, then again, you do have a lot more kids than me. Hard to be out of commission with all that daddy duty 🙂

      Thanks for reading the post and sharing your thoughts. It was certainly my hope that it would help people understand me better (particularly people here in town who may wonder why I don’t come to more events, etc.) It’s kind of hard keeping up appearances that everything is normal, so I figured, “why try?” I’m glad you think it was worth the risk.

  • Jen

    You just keep remindin’ me why I love that you are a part of the NSB Radio Network~you really are the perfect SM teacher for us & our audience. Thank you for sharing your authenticness. I love the idea that SM is not so much about being social, but about not wanting to be alone. You remind me that our current media platforms are really not that different from the traditional media platforms back in the day when there were personality driven programs. As a traditional DJ, I had listeners who would call me daily because they were alone; shut-ins or unable to leave their home. Radio was their ‘social media’. Guess it all comes full circle.
    Rock on~stay sassy;-)

    Pamela

      • Thanks for sharing the article. The CB radio was a big part of my little girl, small town farm life. Loved anything “Smokey and the Bandit” and who didn’t want their own monkey after watching “BJ and the Bear”? BTW~my CB handle was Tinkerbell.

  • What continues to amaze me is that I knew Jen that year she spent in bed and while we didn’t work as closely as we do now, we did some work together, and I had no idea she was suffering. And, she continues to go on this way, producing amazing work and pulling insight from the crazy experiences life has thrown at her.

    You are an amazing woman, Jen. I’m happy to know you.

  • Thank you so much for sharing this personal story, Jen. I really enjoyed reading the insights you were able to pull from your horizontal year- they’re genuine and spot on!

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