Connectivity

I was having a beer at my local karaoke bar last night, and ‘checked in’ on my drinking app, Untappd, which lets me keep track of what beers I’ve had and where I’ve had them, and gives badges for trying different kinds. Anyway, I check in with it every time out of habit, and forgot that it posts to my twitter automatically, and mentions the brewery, and the bar I’m at.

So I check in, then a moment later the bartender looks at her phone and says “Hey, did someone just tweet?”

And I say “Oh, I guess I did.” and we start a conversation about beer and what its like running the bar’s twitter account.

People always say social media isolates us and keeps us from having real world interactions, but, I don’t think it does. The kind of people who are loners would be loners with our without social media, and the kind of people who like to talk to strangers are going to do that regardless, too. We are now a hyper connected society where anyone can talk to anyone anywhere about anything at any time. I can only see that as a benefit to society over all.

And if you happen to be in the same room as someone who reads your tweet, then real world conversations can come of it too.

PS: If you want to add me on Untappd and see what sort of beers I’m drinking, my username is jonasd.