Saturday, March 26, 2011

Addicted

Hello. My name is Cortney and I'm addicted to social media.
(For those who know me in real life, I am aware that I'm spelling my name wrong. I feel by omitting the "u" it makes me less searchable and therefore, more anonymous. Not that anyone is really looking for me.)

Back to my addiction. It started with AOL Instant Messenger. My family didn't have the internet while I was in high school. We had a computer, but no internet. Um, how old am I that I didn't have internet in high school? Anyways, when I went away to college I had the ethernet in my dorm and my parents signed up for AOL. All of a sudden I had access to the internet and instant messenger. Right away, I fell in love. I was able to have conversations with all my high school friends and I so desperately missed them during my freshman year. It was just so amazing. Email still seemed so foreign to me and I love the "real-time" aspect of the IM. I happily IMed all through college.

Then I went to law school and was introduced to myspace. Be still my gossipy little heart. I could look at friend's pictures, read their "about me," and see what they wrote on each other's pages? I rocked my myspace. I had a cute background that was so "me." I changed my song to match my mood. I had a ton of friends. I posted cute pictures on my friend's pages. I wasted many a law school class happily playing on myspace.

Then I became a lawyer and myspace seemed a little young. Now I was posting my honeymoon pictures on my facebook and not even checking my myspace page. Facebook allowed me to reconnect with some great friends and to keep in touch with family that lived out of state.

A couple years after that, I started blogging and reading other people's blogs. It felt liberating to write again, even it was only inane dribble that only my family read.

And then I met twitter. At first I was a little afraid of it. I didn't quite understand it. I got the "wall" and "status update" with facebook. I didn't understand why I also needed twitter. But I signed up and sent out a couple of tweets and promptly forgot about it.

And then I became a working mother and OH MY GAWD do I love my twitter! I'm obsessed with it. I follow many working moms that I have found through their blogs. I also follow Perez Hilton and Anderson Cooper because I like to stay informed (I figure if Perez and/or Anderson are not talking about it then I don't need to know about it).

My love for the twitter really comes from the working moms that I follow. I don't belong to any working moms groups. I don't need to meet with other working moms on the weekend when I'm with my family and can actually forget the stresses of being a working mom. I need the support of other working moms on Wednesdays, when work sucks, it is still the middle of the week, I have baby snot smeared on the shoulder of my suit, I get a call from daycare telling me that my son has pinkeye, and I have to file a motion by 5pm. That is when I need to know that there are other working moms out there, struggling with the same issues as me. And that is why I love twitter. Because I see what other working moms post. I hear about their good days and their bad ones. With a quick glance at my blackberry, I can feel validated that it is ok to work and be a mother. That I am not the only mother who put their child in daycare and that working mothers can thrive despite the difficulty of it all. Twitter brings a sense of community right to my office when I need it the most.

While I may not know the people I follow in real life, it is so comforting to know that I am not the only one trying to balance everything. So I check my twitter frequently. Hell, I check my facebook frequently too. I deleted the myspace a while ago. That went the way of low-rise sparkle jeans. Fun while it lasted but it was time to move on. I love the connection with friends and family that facebook brings and I love the connection with other working moms that twitter brings. I'm totally addicted to my social media and I'm ok with that.

1 comment:

  1. Funny that you should post this. My working moms group is on Facebook and some days I feel like these women post all day long while at the office. So, even though they're working, they spend their days momming. I also think I've given up the weekend mommy and me meetings. Weekends are family time and I want to spend it at home. I must say that when my hubby was in trial and working every weekend it was great though!

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