Social Media for the Holidays

I’d like to take this opportunity to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy Holiday season. And in doing so ponder for a moment the role of online social networks in holiday celebrations.

I expect over the next couple of days to get and receive numerous Christmas greetings via Facebook and Twitter.  Also a few emails from those social network-challenged friends and family I have.  This isn’t a new phenomenon: people started to exchange holiday greetings via phone instead of mail (or in-person visits) early last century as phone technology began to be pervasive.  Similarly over the last 20 years, people started exchanging email greetings instead of phone or mail as email adoption grew.  It comes as no surprise that people would begin using online social networking tools to do the same. 

It seems different, however.  Before with Christmas cards, phone calls, and even to some extent emails, the greetings were more 1-on-1 (ok, granted you might have just sent an email to a Christmas list rather than individuals). You had to address, stamp and mail an individual Christmas card or dial an individual phone number. But now on Facebook, I can not only wish specific people a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukah, or May the Force be With You, I can wish all of them at once.  Further, most of them can see all of my personalized best wishes to my other friends as well.  This seems vastly more efficient, and yet somehow less personal.  On the one hand I can easily get a message out to family members that are hundreds or thousands of miles away, and to old friends I haven’t seen or talked to in years; on the other hand, it seems to lack the intimacy of even a simple phone call.

And thus the world changes. Not so much in big sweeping changes but in lots of little ones that add up over time. (If you haven’t yet seen it, check out the Social Media Nativity video below made by some very inventive people at Excentric.  Brilliant!) I suspect people younger than I think that Facebook messages (or Twitter, or emails, or SMS) are just as “intimate” and legitimate as phone calls or snail mail.

However you choose to express it, please make sure to share your holiday wishes with those close and not so close to you.  As for me, it’s been a genuine pleasure having you join me for my weekly blog messages, and I hope you’ll join me here again next year.  Best wishes to all my family, friends, coworkers and Twitter followers.