John Tierney wrote this column over at the Times today, in their Happiness section: “Will You Be E-Mailing This Column? It’s Awesome.” Seeing as how I make a daily habit out of posting links on Facebook and here, I feel like I’d be remiss if I didn’t post my thoughts on this one as well.
First, a few things:
(1) love the mention of “the optics of deer vision.”
(2) the sample was solely from the NYT. That skews a bit, but could also be safe bc of the mainstreamness of it.
(3) the Times’ tracking system works when tracking the clicks on their page. What about when people like me use a separate “Share on Facebook” or “Digg this!” button I’ve installed in our browser? Does that count, too? And what about when re-shared articles, like I just did with this one? I guess if it tracks the # of times an article’s URL is spit out into the web of social networks, then their stats are fine. But if it only tracks NYT-specific page hits, then eh.
That said, why do I post things with such regularity? What types of articles catch my attention enough that I decide they warrant sharing and blasting out into cyberspace, like a spam message to all my Facebook friends?
Well, the process goes something like this:
What I share is the byproduct of what I read. And I only read what I am surprised/shocked/stunned by, scared by, have something to say about, think might be well-written, is written by someone whose work and thoughts I respect, that I think specific friends might enjoy hearing about, or that I think might elicit a fun debate/discourse.
So this includes anything politic, cultural, health-related, science-related, food-related, tv or entertainment-related and NYC-related.
So far, it’s worked fine and lets me figure out my stance on issues and how to structure those thoughts while having engaging and constructive conversations with friends and colleagues.
How do you use social media? Do you news-share?
Heather J. Chin media 