Social Media and Me

The reason I got to thinking about social media (http://voices-magazine.blogspot.com/2011 /08/social-or-anti-social-media.html) is because I filmed a video short about social media on Friday. I was a movie star for a day.

It's actually not the first movie I have been in. When I worked as a reporter in New York, I wrote about the movie business and sometimes showed up on film, as well, just for fun.

But it has been a while.

In the past ten years, I've been on stage in the Raise Your Spirits productions, a theater company that I founded, and in the Dames of the Dance extravaganzas, my second performing company.

But I was asked to act on video for a social media project, and I said yes.

It was so so so much fun. Imagine being in the spotlight for a half hour, all eyes on you. Everyone has to listen to whatever you say, and they actually have to laugh, because it's the polite thing to do.

So, now I understand how those celluloid stars could really become a little egotistic and selfish, because the spotlight is very appealing to one's self-esteem. And then I can understand why some of them go down the drain after their brief stardom - no spotlight, no attention, no self-esteem.

But I digress...

I was talking to my friend Danny about social media and he told me all the positives - people interacting from all over the world, learning from one another, learning to understand one another, enriching each other's lives, making a change in 100, 1000 or even a million people.

That's a very constructive use of social media.

But unfortunately, we've seen lots of destructive uses of social media lately. The riots in London are totally run by social media. Teenagers twitter each other what block to congregate upon, and then twitter again when it's time to attack, loot or burn down a store. What could be more anti-social media than that?

But really, we can't condemn the system. It seems that social media can be used for good or it can be used for bad. It can tear down walls between people or it can tear down walls.

I'm for using social media in healthy, constructive and helpful ways. I hope you are too.