Has The "Status Updates" Flu Got To You?

“What’s on your mind?” feature in Facebook is the most used by almost anyone I know who are on Facebook. When Twitter comes along, it reinforced the idea of updating one’s status to another notch.



Once upon a time, you don’t get to know what your mom is doing a few hundred miles away until you received a letter but now, you can get updates almost every second of the day. I don’t think anyone would have guessed the kind of “connectedness” world we are living fifty years ago.

I admit I was slow in catching this flu. It boggles my mind at first to read every mundane dots and commas shared by your friends and connections. I mean, do I need to respond to someone who has just updated, “I’m bored….”? Then I realize many people actually use this feature not to get people to read them but it’s an outlet for them to express their thoughts. But it does say something about who we are as humans – we are creatures that need to relate and want attention. So, in a way, we are all kids at heart (ya know how kids are – doing everything to get your attention!).

What the employers are saying?

This flu is definitely affecting our working life. Most professionals are given internet access and with the number of Facebook and Twitter users increasing by the day, more or less every one of them would have an account. Imagine the time spend on updating one’s status, reading other’s status and commenting on them, I wonder what the employers are saying?

I remember my friend was venting his frustration the other day about his staff not able to complete a proposal before the deadline, citing not enough time. The staff apparently was busy updating her status and commenting on others status during that time, completely unaware and had forgotten that her boss is also in her friends’ list. Aha…so, beware who are in your friends’ list? I was caught off-guard one day too when an acquaintance (barely knew him) asked me what a nice name I had for my dog. “Hey, how did you know that?” Immediately I blurted out, I realized the information must have come from one of my updates in Twitter and he is either one of my followers or Facebook friends, or got it from my Blogs!

But many people are using this tool for other purposes such as:-

• Managing own identities. A virtual personality created can be very different from the real self and you can project yourself as more confident, interesting and likeable. It was said that a magazine editor actually hired a professional writer to update her status on full-time basis so that she will be seen as an interesting and mysterious persona.

• Broadcast your service – selling something. (Aha…this is so me)

• Opportunity to give breaking news or make some urgent announcements.

But for whatever reasons , I agree with Pychyl (Psychologies magazine)

"There are three basic human needs. Competence, autonomy and relatedness. What these sites do is really feed that need for relatedness. More than that, they reinforce the idea that our story is just as important as someone else’s story, and the stories of our lives are important."

You know what I'll do next now? You guess it right...click on my Twitter account.(PS In the past, people may term this behavior as egocentric. Now, it’s almost normal…)