Hello everybody! About a week or so ago Facebook was kind enough to let me know that I was “celebrating” my 12 year Faceversary. I opened my Facebook account in early March 2007. It was the first social media platform I joined. I could have joined My Space but for some reason I picked Facebook. Maybe it was the creepy rumors about My Space at the time. Who knew that 12 years later Facebook would become creepy in its own right, but that’s probably a topic for another podcast. It’s hard to believe it’s been that long when I think about it, but I could have sworn I have been on it longer.

I kind of think of social media years like dog years. Where does the time go? If I want to find out where the time went I can usually find what happened on Facebook or most recently Twitter and Instagram.

How long have you been on social media? What was the first social media platform you joined? Was it My Space or Facebook? How long have you been on Social Media?

Where do you spend most of your time?

Since back in 2007 I’ve actually enjoyed social media quite a bit and even learned a few things from it. I actually launched my first podcast in the summer of 2016. It’s called the “How Social Are You Podcast”. My goal was to ask the question “are we more or less social because of social media”.

Like most people I got on Facebook because my family and friends from High School and College were on it. It was like a big high school cafeteria with even more people from outside my school mixed in. I wanted to keep in touch with them and share what was happening in my life with them. Is that why you joined Social Media?

The more I used Facebook the more I realized that I was getting sucked into it and it was consuming way too much of my time. I have to admit that whether it’s Facebook, Instagram or now Twitter I have a tendency to spend more time than I probably should.

I learned that it helps to have boundaries for Social Media use. Also to have filters on the information I’m consuming on Social Media. All of the major platforms give you the ability to block or mute topics or information you don’t want to see. On Facebook I have certain “friends” who I don’t see their posts. I’m still friends with them but I have unfollowed them for a variety of reasons. It could be political or just the “energy” they put out on the platform. I like my facebook feed to be positive and uplifting and for the most part if is.

Do you do the same? How do you deal with topics you aren’t interested in or energy you don’t want to receive?

I use Twitter as more of an information source even though I do follow some people who I’m friends with. I have created “Lists” of people who I don’t even follow but I view them as subject matter experts on topics I’m interested in like USC Football or Politics or Healthy Aging.

I mainly use Instagram as a vision board of beautiful images and places I plan to visit, as well as inspirational quotes. Instagram is also the place where I’m able to follow my daughters, Molly & Riley as well as my sister and my nieces and nephew there. Piper also has a page that I maintain for her although I haven’t really added much to it over the last few years but I do tag her in every photo I post of her on my account @mlindheimer Instagram is really more of a place for Millenials and Gen Z anyway.

Are you on more than one Social Media platform? Do you have different uses for them like I do? The more I got involved with Social Media, I’m a partner in a travel influencer account called @LuxuryWorldTraveler, the more I started to realize that people were becoming more connected to their phones than to the people around them. I was guilty of this too.

A few years ago my wife was working in a restaurant in Santa Monica near the Pier and 3rd Street Promenade and she used to comment that she’d walk up to many of her tables to greet them and would have to wait for them to look up because they were so busy taking the right selfie, scrolling Instagram or messaging someone that wasn’t even there. They were at dinner with people but they weren’t there at dinner. Do you know what I mean? Have you ever experienced this?

It was really around that time I decided to launch the the How Social Are You Podcast. It was because of what I was experiencing personally and what I was seeing around me. I wanted to bring some value to my audience just like I do now with Aging Is Optional Radio. I thought it would be interesting to share the How Social Are You Podcast with you as well. Maybe you’ll receive some value from it so here’s the first episode.

Hello everybody I’d like welcome you to The How Social Are You Podcast this is Mark Lindheimer and you are listening to episode number one! Today we're going to introduce you to the podcast, share a little bit about me and more importantly what I hope to accomplish with this podcast so let's get started.

So, what do I want to discuss on this podcast? Well, I’d really like to interview people about,, you know, what's going on in social media, who's using it, and how, and what are the trends in social media.

But a lot of podcasts are probably talking about that already. More importantly I want to talk about how social media is affecting us as social beings and society as a whole and what part is it playing in our culture.

A little bit about me. I live in Los Angeles and I'm a native Southern Californian. I'm a husband and a father of three beautiful girls. I’m a partner in an Instagram based marketing company called Luxury World Traveler. We have millions of loyal travel obsessed followers who was recently recognized by Forbes.com as one of the top ten most influential profiles to follow. So I've had some experience with social media.

I'm also a baby boomer and so I've experienced the amazing trajectory personal technology has taken over the last twenty years or so and from the PC to the cell phone to message boards to Facebook and the rapid advances in social media from there.The things and products and technologies that we're dealing with on a day to day basis.

I personally use almost every social media application except for My Space and I currently have active accounts on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat. I'll admit I've found the social media applications to be useful, pretty entertaining, frustrating, and absorbing sometimes all the same time.

I've also noticed that as social media has become more and more prevalent it appears that people are interacting at the human level less and less. Maybe you've noticed this? I've been wondering lately, what's the impact social media is having on us as social beings?

I hope to explore many of these topics on the podcast. I want to interview a variety of people on how they're currently using social media, their observations about social media's impact on our culture, and if they have experienced any personal challenges as a result. Any recommendations or strategies they might have in order to, you know, gain some value from social media without allowing it to take over their lives.

So that's the podcast in a nutshell. I hope you find it entertaining, that it helps you take a look at how you're using social media and how it's impacting you as a social being. And that you learn something that you can implement into your own life.

I want to thank you again for listening. You can find the podcast on stitcher, on a speaker and Google play The How Social Are You Podcast . If you have any questions or comments or if you want to contact me you can reach me on Twitter or Instagam @mlindheimer that's mlindheimer or you can email me at [email protected]. Until next time thanks everybody.

I hope you enjoyed that episode and you’ll subscribe to it. There are 19 episodes with different topics and interviews that you might find interesting. I also wanted to share a few statistics with you from this article I found called - 12 Outstanding Statistics On Baby Boomers and Social Media. I’ve also linked the article from Medium up above here in the show notes

82.3% of baby boomers belong to at least one social media site. (Source DMN3)Baby boomers spend 27 hours per week online, which is two hours more per week than those who are between 16 and 34. (Source Colorado University)Baby boomers are less likely to use other social media platforms like Twitter and Instagram.Baby boomers take action based on what they see on social media, and most of the time it’s focused on finding more information. (Source DMN3)

• This one is kind of funny - Videos that are slower paced and have a great deal of information are more likely to appeal to Baby Boomers than faster paced videos with too many visuals. (Source QuickSprout)

Do you fall into some of these statistical categories? What do you plan to do with this information? I’d love to hear what you think. You can check out more information in the article linked above.

I also wanted to share an episode of an Amazon Prime original show called Black Mirror. The episode is called Nosedive and you may or may not be familiar with it. I linked the IMDB to it above.

Here’s the Nosedive episode description:

A woman who lives in a world where most people are completely overwhelmed by the madness of being popular and important in social media ratings earns an invitation from her best childhood friend to her marriage, but certain unexpected occasions will try to stop her from reaching her destiny, had she been able to attend the wedding?

There’s also a board game and app called Black Mirror: Nosedive where you can play against your friends for Social Media score superiority! Seriously...

This type of social media rating is already starting to be implemented in other parts of the world like China. I view this episode and game as really a cautionary tale. What are your thoughts? Have you noticed this in your life?

Thanks again for joining me on Aging Is Optional Radio. I hope you found some value in this episode. That’s really my goal. You can find the podcast on iTunes and I’d really appreciate it if you would subscribe and give it a rating and I love receiving comments!

You can also find it in the Google Play Store, on TuneIn Radio, on Stitcher, PocketCasts, CastBox and Pippa. And I’ll be adding more channels in the future including YouTube. If you like what you hear please be sure to share the podcast with your friends and on social media. You can also reach me directly at [email protected] if you have any questions or want to suggest any topics. Until next time, Thanks, everybody!

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