[Julia Allison] Let me tell you about social media

I was a senior in college when Facebook came online. I got an account immediately, and a year later interviewed the founders for a magazine article oh-so-cleverly headlined “In Your FACE!”

Clearly, I should’ve booked the next flight to Palo Alto and begged for stock options, but they struck me as arrogant. “Who do they think they are?” I thought. “They just run a little college website!”

OK, I missed that one ― but I kept myself busy even while not earning any Internet millions. I launched an Internet startup, published more than 150 articles in major publications, established a broadcast and online presence, spoke at universities and conferences and somehow ended up on the cover of Wired magazine in a story called “How to Get Famous on the Internet ― Even if You’re Nobody.”

So I’m a nobody. But I’m a nobody with a lot of social media experience who just happens to love (love, love, love!) technology. Call me an enthusiast, evangelist, cheerleader ― even a fangirl. It’s all true. Despite a few unpleasant moments in my relationship with social media, I have remained a zealous (at times overzealous) advocate ― and I firmly believe that overall, technology, handled correctly, is a force for good.

Of course, that’s not what everyone thinks.

Even some incredibly intelligent, well-educated people are “terrified” at the prospect of technological revolution.

Reporter Nick Bilton unearthed an 1876 New York Times story that argued the telephone “may really be a device of the enemies of the Republic” and that the phonograph would cause “both book-making and reading (to) fall into disuse.”

“Blessed will be the lot of the small boy of the future,” yesteryear’s New York Times concluded. “He will never have to learn his letters or to wrestle with the spelling book.”

Zing!

Actually, if those 19th century Luddites read text messages from the “small boys of the future” (“yo im herr. partay sux-Whre R u?!”) a case could be made that their predictions were correct. But it wasn’t the phonograph’s fault!

Yet technology marches on, pretty much “not” destroying our lives ― and whether you’re a millennial or an octogenarian, you can’t avoid it.

According to the CIA’s “World Factbook,” there are 2.1 billion Internet users worldwide. In the United States, statistics compiled by the Pew Research Centers Internet & American Life Project show we are increasingly living our lives online: 88 percent of adults ages 18 to 29 own a computer; 96 percent of adults 18 to 29 own a cell phone; 74 percent of cell phone users over 18 text; and 88 percent of online millennials (18 to 34 as of 2011) use social network sites. (That means 12 percent are actually productive, but you can’t hire them because they’re not on LinkedIn!)

There isn’t a single area in our world ― socially, politically, or economically ― that hasn’t been touched by the digital revolution, and we’ve all had “issues” arise as a result. That’s why this is the right time for a social media column. We have a new type of communication and a new type of culture ― and most of us are clueless. Sometimes we just want to bang our heads on the desk.

This column is here to serve as ... well, as a small cushion you can put between your head and the desk.

We’ll help sort out answers, give advice, relate anecdotes and interview experts. We’ll talk about subjects like high-tech snooping, spirituality on the Web, the death of voicemail and the texting explosion. We’ll discuss our new electronic reading habits and look at online education. We’ll tackle the increasingly serious issue of cyberbullying and regularly cover proper “netiquette.”

We’ll ask questions like: Are social networks leading to a world in which we literally have too many friends? Should 12-year-olds have cell phones? Why does everyone’s life seem so perfect on Facebook?

So, why me? Am I really a social media expert? Is there even such a thing?

“An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field.” ― Niels Bohr

Oh, yes.

I have two laptops, a desktop, an iPad and an iPhone ― along with two Facebook profiles, three Twitter handles, a Myspace page, a LinkedIn account, a Flickr feed, four Tumblrs, three Movable Type blogs, one Quora account, two YouTube channels and a small white shih-tzu named Lilly who tweets (@Lillydog).

I have posted more than 10,000 entries on my Tumblr blog, tagged myself in more than 1,800 Facebook photos and tweeted more than 7,700 times on my Twitter account. I have not yet, however, written a book. I can’t! I’m too busy trying to remember all my passwords.

By Julia Allison

Julia Allison is a columnist, TV personality, public speaker and former Wired cover girl. ― Ed.

(Tribune Media Services)