By Hipolito Navarrete, Managing Editor/Publisher

Do you regret how much time you spend on social media? Are you the target of others who judge you do? If you are the target and you do feel that you spend too much time on social media, do you regret it? Do you have clear reasons why you regret it? Is it someone who is telling you how much time you are wasting, or is it that you feel you would be or should spending your time more wisely if you just stayed away from your Instagram account and your Twitter thoughts? Facebook is your enemy; they say, but then what are your options, isolation? How would you be able to find out events that are happening in your city or vicinity if it did not show up on your thread, or remember birthdays of friends you don’t remember? Well, acquaintances may be the best description. So what is an individual who is overwhelmed by the success or the challenges the “Friends” are sharing to do? Are you creating a spectacle to follow or are you just transparently giving access of your life to those that are not able to be around you so that they can see how you are doing? It is a fact that you have all the control on what you share, you do not have control on how others will use that access to your life to either celebrate you or defame you. This is the augmented reality you live in. You need to understand how to use the opportunities presented by these tools or you will exclude yourself from being more present to a wider and quickly changing world. You can set the parameters of your social media feed to include those elements that you feel will help you achieve some of the goals you have for your self and/or your business. This need encourages you to be clear on how to address a potential audience, create traffic for your enterprise or create a network of opportunity. Social media vilification is in vogue, its important that you are thinking through your use of those portals that you have invited to be present in your life.

Social Media is defined as websites and applications that enable users to create and share content or to participate in social networking. These tools can help us stay connected to anyone in the world, if they have Internet and they also don’t have a political regime blocking their population because of fear that the population may realize that they are not being treated humanely. We are social animals, in general, so we are always trying to connect with others so that we can feel that we are part of a community that we can serve or serve us. We even call financial enterprises “companies” because we try to support each other in gaining financial benefits through pooling our skills and our time to create things we can sell for money, we can get a check to pay others for the service they are rendering us. So “social media” can be an opportunity a tool, social or economic, that we should learn to use rather than vilify.

As we are getting used to “Google” for information, we need to make sure that we understand the source of that information. We need to continue to present how and a particular definition becomes a standard? How is it that a word defines something in a particular language so that we all understand what we are trying to communicate, and thus the discovery of language begins anew and it must now be a feverish quest before we have so much information that we will not be able to communicate accurately with each other, loose language and foggy perceptions lead to very bad and at times violent results. Social media forces us to be much more conscious of how vulnerable we can be to the influence, restrictions and manipulations of others, we must be constantly verifying so that we can make educated decisions in responding to those that would use those portals to our detriment. Be aware, be conscious and continue to educate yourself, social media is not going anywhere.