Participation is a HUGE part of the online social world. If no one participated social media would not exist – this is most blatantly obvious when it comes to things like reviews and forums.

Personally I find myself often lurking without contributing (which makes me the same as what is thought to be about 90% of people online – http://www.nngroup.com/articles/participation-inequality/). However, when I am given the option to “Like” something I’ve noticed I contribute consistently through expressing my approval (or disapproval) without words.  More infrequently, I can be found as a contributor on topical forums. However, although I may remain a consistent contributor for a few months I often find myself becoming taxed by the constant stimulus and pressure to respond and will disappear like a teenage runaway in the night – cutting ties to everyone and everything on the forum. On certain forums I may reappear again, but this is rare and it may only happen after months of absence.

In my work as an information profession I’ve found that when it’s part of a job or a project I actually really enjoy communicating with others and the intimacy of remaining in close contact. It’s primarily when it comes to my personal use of social media that I become wrapped too tightly in the online social world for my own comfort.

My use of sites for socialization didn’t really start until after Facebook! Although I was convinced by friends to make a MySpace page (so old!) I secretly hated it and only used it a couple times (mostly to look up bands I liked who had free music through MySpace).

When I first started using Facebook I refused to use my real name. Until Facebook using your real name only was a big no-no. Teachers and parents would emphasize the fact that you should never put your true name online with horror stories about teens and preteens who were murdered or abducted after being tracked down online through their name (nowadays we would call this getting doxxed, but back then the term doxxing didn’t exist).

I’ve rapidly expanded my use of social media as new and exciting technological advances and revelations have come about. I now use Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat and a few others as well as what most people think of as “the basics” (i.e. Facebook and such) and mostly on my smartphone.

I’m very interested in where social media will take us in the future. For example, Goodreads and Netflix are two sites I frequent regularly that don’t seem social at first glance but rely on social media for reviews of books and movies.