According to Nielsen Media, in the last five years, full-fledged adults have seemingly given up the telephone — land line, mobile, voicemail and all. Even on cell phones, the amount of money adults spend on voice usage has been trending downward, with text spending expected to surpass it within three years.  It’s apparent, as we moved closer to being more interconnected, we are becoming more and more disengaged from one another. Let’s examine some of the other aspects of social media that have affected the way people interact, keeping in mind we are on the precipice of firing workers via video conference becoming a routine part of HR and business. 

How many phone calls do you make during your work day? How many do you receive? How about outside of work?  Now compare this number to the emails you receive, and then the number of your texts, tweets, Facebook updates, etc. Walk around your office; how many people do you see on the phone? I bet you understand my point. John McTigue, an executive VP and co-owner of Kuno Creative, an inbound marketing agency based in Avon, Ohio, discusses three issues agencies face when offering social media as a service. He sums up his post by saying that marketing has changed so much that it is essential that marketing companies adopt a social media engagement strategy. Furthermore, marketing agencies are now being asked to be their client’s social media presence. How many business-to-business and business-to-consumer transactions now take place without company representatives in the same room?  

Social media is about relationship growth that does not need to take place with face-to-face meetings. It can expand your circle of friends, acquaintances, and advisors without geographic limits and has the propensity to give you access to a host of interesting thinkers to learn from.  The same can be said for businesses engaging their clients and contacts through social media and digital technology. However, more often than not, it seems we limit our social media message to those who only agree with us, that’s when we’re not just pushing messages out rather than creating two-way dialogues. Thus, to me, it appears we stunt our limitless opportunities to expand our knowledge base and evoke real change. 

So here is my social media call to action: Please stop the tweets that you just had pizza.  Please stop updating your Facebook with pet pictures.  Stop texting movie quotes to each other and do something with this forum. I want to see this really accomplish more within our neighborhoods and with hyperlocal initiatives.  If we truly believe the power of social media’s influence on what is going on in the Middle East, why don’t we try empowering our friends to begin helping those less fortunate and make a real difference. Organize a charitable event for someone we do not know.  Those are the tweets that I want to see! 

I am not going to discredit it; but, as of right now, social media is not going to save the world.  Are most of your friends tweeting about Egypt these days? I didn’t think so.  In my BurrellesLuce previous blog, I discussed the affects social media has had on the Middle East, specifically the uprisings in Egypt. I’m not going to ignore or debate the social impact social media may have had on that revolution, but again, I will say great movements require great leaders and a galvanizing leader has yet to take up the mantle. Social media cannot supply the great leader.  It hasn’t proved to be anything more than a mechanism.   

During the onset of World War II, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt would secretly meet British Prime Minister Winston Churchill aboard a battleship somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean. Do you think the agreements to supply the Allies with weapons from 1939 through 1941 would have manifested through text messages or status updates?  Do you think the invasion of Normandy would have been better planned if it was tweeted between allied generals?  Or if video conferencing was used to remove an ineffective world leader from office? Of course not!  All great things are accomplished through face-to-face meetings; whether it’s birth of a nation, the emancipation of it, or its liberation, history has shown that we humans demonstrate our best qualities when things are worse and we come together to right a wrong, no matter how popular or unpopular the issue.

What has happened? Is it the technology or is it us? At this point the answer to this question is trying to delineate Dr. Frankenstein from his monster. What do you think? Can we talk, face-to-face and in person? You can send me an invite from Facebook, but be prepared to meet me somewhere, in person, and not via a video screen or message board.

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*Bio: Richard Gallitelli brought a wealth of sales and customer-service experience when he came to BurrellesLuce in 2007. His outstanding performance as a sales associate and personalized shopper for Neiman Marcus (he also has worked for Nordstrom) earned him a nomination by Boston magazine as “Best of Boston” sales associate for high-end retail fashion stores. Rich’s talents also won him praise and a profile in the book, “What Customers Like About You: Adding Emotional Value for Service Excellence and Competitive Advantage,” written by best-selling business author Dr. David Freemantle. Rich majored in English Literature at William Paterson University, and is a published poet and short-story writer. Facebook: BurrellesLuce Twitter: BurrellesLuce LinkedIn: BurrellesLuce