Ah the bubble that is Social Media .. and no, most people couldn’t care less

For those of you readers who don’t have a clue what Social Media is beyond using Twitter or playing FarmVille on Facebook be thankful because it can be a total time suck (yes beyond even FarmVille) that really doesn’t return you anything of any value. It is more about people with questionable claims of guru-ship and expert this or that looking to get you to follow them so they can brag about how popular they are. Ya, almost like high-school all over again.

So it was fun to see that it took a high-school student, and budding social media pundit (quick Holden run.. run fast) by the name of Holden Page to cut to the chase and bring a touch of reality to this silly little world.

If there exists one great thing about living in a no name town as a tech blogger, it’s the fact that I am not surrounded by tech geeks like me at all times. I am forced to deal with people who basically know how to open up Internet Explorer, go to Facebook.com, then play some games such as FarmVille. The people I regularly talk to don’t give a damn about their privacy settings, lists, API’s and what have you.

I am dealing with the mainstream user on a daily basis.

Some things I have learned from the mainstream users:

1. While I think most games are a waste of time, mainstream users OBSESS over them.
2. They don’t like complexity, but they like knowing the options EXIST.
3. They don’t care how it works, they care how it LOOKS.

And that folks is about as close to the truth as you will get when it comes to the validity and usefulness of social media.

As much as all these pontificators of what the future will look like on the Web – all thanks to social media mind you – would like you to believe Social Media isn’t the end all be all and neither does it matter to anyone other than a very small segment of the Web. Unlike their rantings and raving the majority couldn’t careless about security settings (any computer tech who has worked on virus laden machines with their AV turned off can tell you that) and are just as happy to let Facebook hold their hands.

Now threaten to take away their FarmVille away and you would probably have the biggest outcry of angry people this side of the barnyard.