Not Able to Compute

That Does Not Compute, Will Robinson! 

Social media overload, enough said? Well, if the title of my blog made no sense to you then you were NOT, I repeat NOT a child of the 60s. It doesn’t matter how many statistics tell you that you were, or that you know what I’m talking about; if you don’t know who Will Robinson was, then you can use my information and write your own Wikipedia article about it.

So, I am on a rant. I’ll explain about Wikipedia later, but for now: I’ve just watched a video on youtube (yes another one!) which states that:

• over 50 percent of tweets via Twitter (is there another way to tweet?)     are for advertising 
• We will no longer search for products; they will find us via social media 
• People in Egypt are naming their children Facebook

And there is much, much more… OMG,  I guess I’ve been officially welcomed to the “Social Media Revolution”!

                                

The video by Erik Qualman (see above) nearly took my breath away with its ginormous (I can make up words too) typeface, so bold as to throw itself at me!

While the video was informative and listed appropriate credits to prove the stated facts and figures; who is going to research each one? Not I surely, because I definitely had trouble comprehending all of said information.

A parody of Qualman’s book, Socialnomics is actually listed in his own videos on youtube which I found quite entertaining!

The description states Qualman found it “entertaining” so he put it in his own list of videos.

Here’s another interesting fact:

•  While in the same breath/text that Qualman reports China doesn’t allow any social media, (Facebook, twitter, youtube, and google), he had his own video translated into Chinese and guess where you can find it….yep on youtube.com!  Take a look!

A lot of the numbers (stats) that are used in such videos can’t possibly be proven, or can they? I took it upon myself (mainly because of curiosity) to find out.

First challenge:

• One in five divorces is blamed on facebook.

Okay, I’m game. We’ve all heard stories about how “she” found out that “he” was looking at some “woman” on facebook (I seriously just added the word facebook to my ms word dictionary!) and was sending “her” private messages.

Please hold while I Google that information (I seriously just added Google to it also!).

Of course, someone had already Googled it because it came up to this post on hugffingtonpost.com : 
divorce caused by facebook

Okay, so someone decided to do an actual study on this topic (go figure). There’s also a “like” facebook tab (thumbs up!) at the very beginning of the article, how comical is that?

So, according to this article, there was a real study done and it is going to be published in….are you ready?.... The “Journal of Cyberpsychology” (just added that to my dictionary also!), I had no idea there even was such a journal and probably would have laughed if someone insisted upon it.  So, of course I Googled it and found that it is real; it’s even a peer-reviewed journal. Wow, impressive.

Back to the article, so, this guy Clayton, who’s working on his doctorate, gets some of his colleagues,  to collaborate with him and do a survey on a bunch of 18-82 year old “Facebookers”. 

The study goes something like this: Said “Facebookers” are found to have “Facebook-induced jealousy”. Seriously! It also states “high levels of Facebook use is associated with negative relationship outcomes for newer couples…”

I wonder if people said the same thing about television when it first came out. 

This time I went to Wikipedia for information. Remember what Qualman reported in his video about Wikipedia?

Okay for those of you who choose not to watch the video (haha…ahem…LOL), “If Wikipedia were made into a book it would be 2.25 million pages long”.

This is what wikipedia.org has posted:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_in_the_1950s

According to the article, “sales of television sets boomed in the 1950s”, which I kind of knew already (I was born in 1960). While I enjoyed the information, I was not able to find divorce statistics due to television. So, back to Google I went.

I won’t bore you with the details, however; I was not able to link divorce and television in the 1950s. Now, what if I made up a statistic? Well, I wouldn’t do it, but who says others don’t?

When I went to Wikipedia.org, I typed in “divorce and television in the 1950s”.  The site replied “The page "Divorce and television in the 1950s" does not exist. You can ask for it to be created, but consider checking the search results below to see whether the topic is already covered.”

Now, I’m being told that I can ask for it to be created? Okay, let’s click there…which brings me to this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_creation

So, apparently I can create my own article by …ahem…telling the truth on a registration page, making my own account, and then typing in all sorts of information!

No, I didn’t really do it, although I thought about it for a split…maybe longer….second.

No, not today. Today I leave this for all statistically-minded, social media brained people like Mr. Qualman, to have their very own opines. 

As for you people who were wondering, the quote in the beginning of this blog is from the "ancient" television show "Lost in Space". 

Seriously, Google it, or better yet, check Wikipedia!!