Last night I was watching The Marriage Ref and Bette Midler was one of the celebrity guests.  One of the marriage conflicts up for discussion was a couple where the wife has a Blackberry addiction and the husband felt that her reliance on her Blackberry was interfering with their relationship.  While I’m certain that there are some folks out there who may spend just a little too much valuable time wrapped up in the ‘smartphonesocialmediainternet’ realm of life, there is some definitive value attached to the technology-driven world we live in today.

Bette Midler made a comment that she thought that all of this stuff was actually “making us stupid (see episode at 7:02).”  Oh Bette, that’s a comment that we’ll just pretend to forget…and here’s why:

10 Reasons Social Media Is Making Us Smarter

1. Emergency Response.  We don’t have to dig too far back into our history receptacles to be reminded of the storm that forever changed the ‘Big Easy‘.  Hurricane Katrina was a disaster that negatively affected a lot of people and still does to some extent.  Criticism of the response from the government and just about everybody else abounds, but interestingly, much has changed since 2005.  When Katrina occurred Facebook was barely a year old and was just starting to evolve from a photo sharing forum to the 470 million+ users powerhouse that we know today.  Twitter?  Yeah, 2006.  Texting? Still not the trend that has even our 82 year old grandmothers joining the conversation.  So let’s fast forward to January 12, 2010 at 4:53 EST when Haiti experiences a 7.0 magnitude earthquake.  By January 14th, a mere two days later, over $5 million dollars are raised by the American Red Cross leveraging a simple SMS text campaign for donations.  People trapped under rubble, but still holding onto their cell phones are able to be found by status updates on Facebook and tweets on Twitter.




2. Education.  I’m only 36 years old and I remember having to go to the library and check out several books to find information on any number of given topics as research for a paper that I was writing, a speech I was giving or simply to learn more about a particular subject.  Nothing wrong with that at all, however think about the flip-side.  Today, if I want information on ANYTHING, I can type 10 keystrokes (google.com) in a cute little box and get 14,500,000 results in 0.41 seconds.  That’s a real example for the record.  I typed 2 words (“what magnitude”) upon my arrival to Google when I wanted to confirm my facts about the Haiti earthquake magnitude.  Did you notice that I said I typed only 2 words?  I didn’t even have to finish my query because the ever-smart, almighty Google gave me a drop-down list of options that included “what magnitude was the Haiti earthquake”.  Say what you will about the way things used to be, but the speed with which we can gather information translates to our ability to work smarter which leads to efficiency.




3. Revolutionizing Politics.  While I don’t want to open up discussions about which politician you do or don’t like, there is no denying that social media is changing the entire game face of politics.  Politicians are no longer able to simply hide behind their ridiculous campaign commercials in order to sway the masses.  Prior to being elected, during their terms and after they’ve left office, they now get to answer to the people.  Which ironically is the way it should have always been but unfortunately the technology was somewhat lagging for a long time.  Whether you look at our current President and the support garnered via social media along with continuous communication not previously available, to Bill McCollum the Florida Attorney General who likes to spend taxpayers’ money on frivolous if not ludicrous expenditures, there’s a new sheriff in town and it’s the people thanks to social media.




4. Business Dealings.  I love it when I hear a social media naysayer mention that they think business should go back to the way it used to be – “honest and with a handshake”.  Hmmm, business used to be completely honest and simply sealed with a handshake?  Perhaps, but it’s only because they didn’t have iPhones back then.  Dishonesty in business dealings is not new.  There has always been and there always will be crooked business people.  The difference is that today when you deal with a dishonest business, you have the option of letting everybody know about it and possibly being an instrument of justice.  For far too long, we were subjected to one-way marketing from businesses telling us why we should buy from them whether they were honest or not and whether they genuinely provided a valuable service or product for consumers or not.  Now the tables have turned thanks to…you guessed it, social media.  If United Airlines breaks your guitar in transit and refuses to do anything about it, you can tell a whole lot of people about it and United will feel the pinch.  There’s an accountability for all of us that own businesses that we can’t hide from.  Smarter businesses means happier consumers – ’nuff said.




5. Safety.  Now this can be a double-edged sword when over-sharing comes into play, but there is definitely a smart spin related to social media and safety.  For example, agencies in Britain are using Twitter and other social networking platforms to help find missing and exploited children.  For those that want to harp on the pervs and abusers who use social networks to exploit children, you make a good point.  But law enforcement can use these very same technologies and techniques to catch those people and find and rescue lost and exploited children.  Location based social networking has drawn fire recently because of the potential for would-be robbers to gain easy access to people’s whereabouts.  And guess what?  That’s true.  But since I like to look at every angle, I find a bit of comfort in knowing that if something were to happen to me, help may have an easier time reaching me simply because of the bread crumbs I’ve left by utilizing location-based social networking.  This is typically where the argument starts about the terrible people that use these types of things to harm others.  Can’t deny that, but I’m going to err on the side of people being good in general and press for the good to continue to outweigh the bad.




6. Entertainment.  I bet you’re wondering how social media and entertainment are making us smarter right?  The funny thing is that there are so many reasons it’s scary, but I’ll just highlight a couple of them.  One thing that almost every one of us would likely agree on is that the economy has recently been a bit rough.  Many of us have had to learn to be a bit more frugal and gasp…go on budgets.  Remember how it was not that long ago when a new movie was coming out and all we would know about that movie were the previews?  The only way to find out the times that particular movie would be playing was the newspaper or yep, I’m about to go there…MovieFone (don’t act like you didn’t use it and go figure they’re on Facebook and Twitter now too).  And if you decided to go see that movie after 4:00p and paid a ridiculous amount of money only to find that it sucked worse than a cut-up lip on a lemon, oh well, too bad, so sad.  Our friend social media has changed all of that.  Now, you can see the previews, see real-time reviews from people that you trust, book your ticket online (sometimes with a discount), or opt not to see it because it doesn’t make sense all in a matter of moments.  No wasted gas, no wasted time, no wasted money.  Smarter?  I think so.  And just in case i didn’t make the case for smarter, let’s talk about one more thing.  Remember when CD’s of albums were all the rage and they cost upwards of $20?  But then you’d get the CD home and find that you liked only one song on the whole thing.  Social media and online technology have changed that landscape forever.  That $20 + gas expenditure and trip has now become a $0.99 download off iTunes that you can listen to in the car on your way to go see that movie that all your friends said was H.O.T.T.!  Definitely smarter!




7. Community.  Did you know that there’s a whole world out there?  If you don’t, it’s because you don’t use social media.  You see if you like the color blue, you can be a part of a worldwide community that likes the color blue thanks to social media.  If a street in your city has so many potholes that you’ve lost a tire and stained your chinos, you can be a part of a citywide community that has experienced similar tire loss and stains thanks to social media.  For every 1 group or organization out there attempting to divide people, there are 20 more working to unite people.  And when communities are able to share information and learn, guess what?  They become smarter.




8. Being Social.  It sounds almost ignorant to list this, but hear me out.  There are tons of really smart people, with really great ideas and value to bring to the table out there that unfortunately may be too shy to share that value in person.  Yes, I’m referring to social ineptitude.  It happens.  But social media gives some of those very same people an outlet and forum to share their intelligence, great ideas and value with the rest of us.  In the spirit of squelching the potential negativity that can come from this one, it’s only fair to state that there are some people who are so socially backward that even neatly tucked behind a monitor, they will be unable to effectively communicate with others.  But there’s always a silver lining and that silver lining is called “block, delete, hide, remove, defriend, unfollow” – your weapon against the incurable inept.




9. Dating.  Controversial yes, but apparently it works.  People are finding the loves of their lives leveraging social media.  I’m not one of them…since I found the love of my life in a more traditional way – a nightclub.  But who am I to judge?  How does social media dating make us smarter?  Simple.  Without the luxury of having someone in front of you day and night or spying on them, the only way to find out who the real “them” is, is to observe them in action with their friends, daily activities, likes, interests, etc.  And social media gives everyone who participates a pair of binoculars to peer into that world.  Sort of a try before you buy concept.




10. Economic Growth.  We’ve all had our opportunity to complain about how the economy crashing has negatively impacted our lives, but stop and think about what social media has done for economic growth.  It has provided a forum for employers to find qualified candidates, post open positions, etc.  It has given job-seekers a way to find opportunities where opportunities weren’t previously present.  It has given companies like ours a chance to expand and thus create jobs and at the rate that it’s growing is continuing to provide additional opportunities for a lot of people.  And that’s just smart.

So to the Divine Miss M and all those other people who think that social media is nothing more than a trend, time-waster or bobsled speeding toward stupidity, I’d ask you to take a minute and reconsider for the reasons above and plenty more.  Plus, if you’re reading this, it’s a blog post which means it’s social media, which means that either you just got stupid or you just got smarter?