On February 23rd of this year, I turned 35. A friend of mine from high school, Brian Smith – a guy I haven’t seen face to face in nearly a decade but have reconnected with on Facebook and Twitter – posted the following video to my Facebook wall.
Coincidentally, Brian & I share a birthday (he’s a few years older). Besides the fact that this Sixteen Candles video clip is a classic, it got me thinking about…Social Media Birthdays. Or maybe a better way to say it is, how social media has changed how we say happy birthday.
Do you remember the days before Facebook and Twitter? Think for a minute. This time did exist. In fact there was even a time before the Internet or email or smart phones (or even cell phones). On your birthday, you received nice (Hallmark) cards in the mail. Friends and family would call. In total, you’d get a few dozens cards & phone calls. You felt pretty good.
Enter social media.
As most of you who are reading this know, I’m pretty active in the social media space. As the Director of Community at Blue Sky Factory, it’s much of what I spend my day doing. However, the following numbers were even surprising to me. Below are my “Birthday Stats” for lack of a better term.
Birthday Stats By The Numbers
1: Dragon Dictation text from my dad
1: LinkedIn message
2: e-Cards – My Aunt. Blue Sky Factory (my employer).
3: Personal emails – My grandma. A co-worker. Chris Brogan.
5: Email marketing messages – One was from my Dentist!
6: Direct messages (DMs) on Twitter
7: Text messages
8: Phone calls
47: Tweets – Including Mike Schneider’s annual #WaldowStyle picture (see tweet)
But those numbers paled in comparison to what happened on Facebook. Are you ready for this?
171 People Posted On My Facebook Wall
At the time, I had 797 Facebook “friends.” I did the math so you didn’t have to. 21.4% of my Facebook “friends” posted some version of “Happy Birthday” on my wall.
Now, before I continue, let me be clear: This post is not about me bragging how many people wished me a happy birthday. I’ll admit – and Kristina reminds me often – I do love to be the center of attention. However, in this case, my reason for sharing these numbers is to explain how social media has changed birthdays.
90% of my 251 birthday wishes came from Twitter and Facebook. Is that number as staggering to you as it is to me?
What Does All Of This Mean?
What effort goes into posting “Happy Birthday” on Facebook or sending a quick tweet? Not much. Now please don’t get me wrong. I appreciated every single message and did my best to reply to all of them. It was nice for people to take time out of their busy days to acknowledge my birthday. But, how meaningful is it really? I thought about really breaking down the 171 Facebook posts, but decided it may not be worth the time/effort. Suffice to say, the far majority of social media “mentions” were a simply “Happy Birthday.” Some were quite creative – Mike’s #WaldowStyle meme, Brian’s posting of the Sixteen Candles video, my dad’s text using dragon dictation, but the far majority were not.
I think it’s amazing that we are really just one click, one Facebook post, one tweet, one text, one phone call, one IM, one Skype call, one [fill in the blank] message away from contacting nearly anyone in the world. I love it. Literally, we are just a click away. That’s power.
However, are all of these “loose associations” really meaningful? I think a lot about Dunbar’s number. Is it really possible to have more than 150 social connections at one time? I have over 800 Facebook “friends,” 8,000+ Twitter followers, 500+ LinkedIn connections, countless contacts in Gmail, etc etc. Much effort has gone into solving this issue with technology (think Gmail’s priority inbox and Twitter groups & lists); however computers and algorithms cannot rewire the brain. We are still human.*
*I think my co-worker and friend, Chris Penn, uttered a quote similar to that in a bar in Tampa earlier this year.
I realize now that this post has a lot of incomplete thoughts. That’s intentional. I don’t have the answers. What I do know is that I really do love people. I love our complexity. I love our simplicity.
It’s all about people.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on this topic in the comments below.
DJ Waldow
@djwaldow
