Do you love or hate social media?

I recently took the Pew Research's "How Millennial Are You?" quiz, and scored in the 70s. The survey asked a handful of questions, based on texting, how many hours of tv you watch, internet usage, video games, and if you read the newspaper. I had other friends that scored in the 20s, and some in the 30s.

Taking this quiz made me think about social media. You know what I'm talking about--the Facebook, the Twitter, the Tumblr, the Digg, the Myspace...and the list goes on and on and on. I consider myself to be somewhat in the middle with the social media game. In my office, I am like the Queen Bee of social media, mainly because my coworkers don't get how to use it, much less how to save attachments from e-mails, but that's another story for another day.

In my group of friends, I am pretty much the connected one. I have some friends on LinkedIn, and definitely most everyone I know is on Facebook. But I also know some people in their 20s that want nothing to do with Twitter. Those people are the same people that don't have internet on their phones* and aren't regular e-mail checkers.

But while I love my Twittering, and blogging, and Facebooking, I also don't become obsessed with it. I mean, sure it's part of my job to do it, and I like the community that's created with social media. I like that people can read my thoughts and respond to them, and I can feel like my voice is being heard. But in the big scheme of things, I don't consider myself a social media lover per se. When I get on Twitter and start to see all these tweets about social media conferences, and what's the future of the web, etc etc., I lose interest. I become bored, and willingly mark those tweets as read and erase them. I don't have the passion for social media that some people my age do. But I at least have the smarts to try it all out so I can at least know what's going on out there.

What about you? Are you a social media lover or a hater?

*I don't have internet on my phone either but that's mainly because I think it'd be a waste of my time and it's easier to check stuff on a real computer, not to mention I don't want to pay for a data plan.

ASAP

I admit, I love technology. I like it when I get an instantaneous response, like IMs or Facebook. I get on a natural high when I can text or e-mail someone back right away, beating them to the punch. But I'm starting to think that I'm spoiled.

Recently a friend of mine asked for my e-mail address. I gave it to him, and he promised to e-mail. So the next day I checked my inbox. Nothing. I thought, okay, maybe he's just busy. Because clearly I respond to my emails almost ASAP. It drives me nuts to have unread e-mails sitting in my inbox.

Three days later, I still had nothing. I was beginning to really get annoyed and ticked off. I mean, why ask for my e-mail address IF YOU AREN'T GOING TO EMAIL??? Simple concept really. Plus, I guess I'm just used to getting a response.

By day four, I was mad. I ignored his phone calls on purpose. I felt like a fool to give my e-mail address. Finally on day five, I sucked it up, and answered his call. I told him how I was really disappointed that he never e-mailed. His response was "Well, I thought that if I e-mailed you within a week, that was good. And I never promised I would e-mail you the next day, I just said I would e-mail you." I let those words sink in. He was right, but I assumed that if someone said they'd e-mail, it would be the next day. It wouldn't be a week later.

The next day, I finally got my long awaited e-mail. But by then I was so over it.

Over IM, I asked my friend about this whole situation.

me: q, are you one who expects immediate response to emails/texts with friends aka not work related things?

4:29 PM him: eh

i guess not

depends on urgency

me: right but say you give your friend your email address

cuz they want it

4:30 PM and then they don't email for like 5 days

would you be annoyed or wouldn't really care

him: i imagine i wouldn't care

me: hm

okay

him: but you do care?

4:31 PM me: yes, i do. i am so used to instantaneous response, that when i don't get that, I get annoyed/frustrated. case in point, the above example. gave email to friend, thinking they'd email the next day. checked email since last thursday, still no email. I called them out on it, they thought a week was acceptable to wait. They didn't see any problem.

him: ok well

obv we have diff time priorities

me: exactly

4:33 PM which makes me wonder where the difference lies. is it on an individual basis? is it a generational thing? or are we spoiled by social media and all of its instant perks?

4:46 PM him: and you probably didn't like the delayed response to that question

Case in point: Am I the only one who cares? And is wanting a response ASAP a generational thing? Or are we spoiled by social media and all its instant perks? What do you think?