In a recent course forum discussion, we shared favorite social media streams from libraries, archives, and museums.  It was an interesting exercise – it’s kind of mind-boggling to realize just how varied the Twitterverse can be.

One of the feeds I brought up was that of Stanford Libraries (@StanfordLibs).  I follow Stanford Libraries on both Twitter and Facebook, mainly because I made heavy use of those libraries as a student and as an employee at Stanford since 2004.  I enjoy the variety of posts, from photographs of the library to overheard comments from students and other patrons to more serious announcements of events, acquisitions, and news.  They do a wonderful job of interacting with other social media users, too.  It’s not too hard to get a RT on Twitter, and they frequently interact with other Stanford-related Twitter accounts.  They even follow me.

The one flaw I might point out is that the Twitter feed and the Facebook feed are virtually identical.  This is fine for someone who follows just one, but for someone like me, it’s a little annoying. Granted, the two formats allow different presentation.  What might be found via a hyperlink on Twitter (like a photo) can be included directly in the post on Facebook.  I don’t think it’s reasonable of me to expect that the social media account managers at Stanford take the time to provide widely different streams – that’s not really the point of social media usage that’s more promotional in intent than anything else.  But it means that I either have to deal with constant redundancy or choose to un-follow one feed.  And there’s the “Fear Of Missing Out” that comes up so much these days.

It’s not an overwhelming source of anxiety for me, but it niggles.  I look forward to Stanford’s new posts, because I’m interested in what’s going on there and I’m proud of the library institution itself.  I love seeing what they’ve acquired, and what they’re promoting.  According to a recent Twitter post, they’ve updated the scrolling announcements on the library homepage.  Now they include, among other things, virtual access to digital images of Big Game* programs from the founding of the university onwards.

Fear of Missing Out, or “FOMO,” seems to be a big issue with social media.  It’s why we check Facebook compulsively and why we use social media to hang on to friends who maybe aren’t really friends anymore.  I did try to find an academic article or two that addressed this, but had more luck with more popular media sources (a great NYTimes article can be found here: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/10/business/10ping.html?_r=5& and blogger Sophia Dembling’s analysis is here). FOMO isn’t really a new thing, but it’s been vastly magnified by social media and the Internet in general.  The constant updates from friends about their glamorous, exciting lives make us feel inadequate.  It reminds me of something I once heard from storyteller and children’s musician Bill Harley about being in sixth grade.  He said it’s like one day, the teachers handed out a memo to all the kids present on how to be cool – what to wear, what to do, what to say… but a lot of kids must have been absent that day, because only a few got that memo.

FOMO is kind of like that.  It seems like somehow everyone else is more successful, more popular, and just plain cooler.

Or maybe I’m just avoiding deciding whether to drop Stanford Libraries’ Facebook or Twitter feeds. It’s a possibility.  But what if the one I drop starts providing different, better information?

I’d better think again.

*Big Game is the annual football match between Stanford and its primary rival, UC Berkeley.  The winner gets the Axe for the year, which is kind of a stupid prize, but it’s tradition and the weeklong festivities are amusing, like putting red dye in the fountains or spiking a stuffed bear (Berkeley’s mascot) on top of the Claw fountain by the bookstore to dirge-like musical accompaniment from the Band.