SOCIAL MEDIA—THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT

Two years ago I joined Facebook.  I did so to hoping to keep up with our two oldest granddaughters living in Atlanta.  Two years plus two months, I dropped out of Facebook.  I decided there are some things a grandfather does not need to know.

One more reason–Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Buzznet, Twitter, Flickr, Yelp, and many, many others can be black holes relative to time: time consumed and probably wasted.   I can demonstrate this fact with the following graphic.

Please note:  the chart represents EVERY MINUTE OF THE DAY. EVERY MINUTE.

We have become a world in which Social Media has taken over our lives and created an addicted culture—at least for some.  As more and more people devote themselves to Social Media, our ability to effectively communicate becomes infected with “bleed-over” from acronyms use.  I’m not saying we can’t adjust but really, but do we need to?  Have you ever tried reading an e-mail written by a millennial?  Some are worse that others but most individuals are not into guessing games when time is a precious commodity, and in the business world that seems to be always.  We need a modern day Rosetta Stone to decipher the “lingo” and abbreviations used by some.  As you recall, the Rosetta Stone is an obelisk with three different scripts, hieroglyphic, demotic and Greek.  It was the first bilingual text recovered in modern times showing translations between languages.  There is a code that prevails in Social Media and only frequent users are privy to the secret.   Given below are examples of modern-day Social Media group-speak.  Please keep in mind; this is only a smattering of what’s out there.

CULTURAL:

• OOTD—Outfit of the day
• KOTD—Kicks of the day (I have no idea as to what “kicks” refers to.)
• HMU—Hit me up. (That means give me a call or send me a text.)
• SMASH—I would love to have sex with you. (Really crude but a part of the teenage vernacular.)
• TBH—To be honest.
• TBR—To be rude
• OOMF—One of my followers (I suppose if you follow an individual on Twitter or Facebook you are a follower.)
• BMS—Broke my scale (Scale of one to ten—I’m guessing here.)
• IDK—I don’t know
• RN—Right now
• FML—F*** my life (Sorry about this one but it is said frequently.)
• WTF—What the F***. (Also a frequent saying that’s becoming more popular with the late-night crowd. I also see this abbreviation in blogs written by want-to-be journalist. )
• LMAO—Laughing my ass off.
• CWD—Comment when done.
• PIR—Parent in room
• POS—Parent over shoulder
• BFF—Best friend for life
• BRB—Be right back
• FOMO—Fear of missing out.
• IMHO—In my humble opinion
• ROFL—Rolling on the floor laughing (This is by far my favorite.)

The kids are not the only ones with their abbreviations.

BUSINESS:

• B2B—Bussiness to business
• B2C—Bussiness to client
• CMGR—Community manager
• CMS—Content management specialists
• CPC—Cost per click (I love this one.)
• CR—Conversion rate.
• CTA—Call to action
• KPI—Key performance Indicator
• PPC—Pay per click
• PV—Page views
• UGC—User generated content
• ROI-Return on investment (Old as the hill.)

TECHNICAL:

• API- Application Programming Interface
• ESP—E-mail service provider
• HTML—Hypertext markup language
• ISP—Internet service provider
• RSS—Really simple syndication
• SaaS—Software as a Service
• SEM—Search engine marketing
• SEO—Search engine optimization
• TOS—Terms of service
• UI—User interface
• UX—User expense.

Social Media is definitely here to stay.  It will not go away anytime soon and I am not saying it should.  I am saying time spent with social media is, for the most part wasted time.   If you appreciate a little privacy, you will not “park” day-after-day on the SS websites.  There are some who feel the days of free social media are coming to a close.  This will possibly lessen the number of “hits” per minute.   Only time will tell.

As always, I welcome your comments.