Sharing our lives through social media, rather than living our lives on it
Let’s be clear: Social media and the technology that drives it is not going away, and I’m not advocating that it should. Fact is, unless there’s “Zombie Apocalypse” in our near future (and if there were, we’d have bigger problems to worry about), no one is putting the social media genie back in the bottle. A 2017 report compiled by Hootsuite and “We Are Social” and published by The Next Web found that there are 3.028 billion active social media users around the globe—roughly 40 percent of the world’s population. This is an amazing testament to the powerful nature and connective influence that these platforms and communities have had on how we live our lives—at work, at home, and everywhere in between. The recent phenomenon of the #HRTribe has afforded so many of us the opportunity to truly connect, share ideas and grow. Yet, studies have also shown that there can be a downside to all this connectivity, particularly for the next generation of our workforce.
A January 2018 Washington Post article describes the effects of screen time and social media among today’s adolescents in the U.S., based on the findings of the study “Decreases in Psychological Well-Being Among American Adolescents After 2012 and Links to Screen Time During the Rise of Smartphone Technology.” One of the sobering trends shows that the psychological well-being of today’s adolescents decreases the more they are on their smartphones and online. And with the ubiquity of devices and social media, the question remains: How do we strike a balance between all the positive that social media and technology provides us while still tending to our real-life relationships, particularly in today’s workplace?
Please join @SHRMNextchat at 3 p.m. ET on May 2 for #Nextchat with one collective special guest, the #HRTribe! This week’s topic: navigating social culture. We will chat about how to manage the challenge of sharing our lives through social media, rather than living our lives on it. And, when we do choose to network via social media, how do we adhere to a set of behaviors that makes the experience rewarding—for all of us?
Q1. How do you use social media to help your personal and professional growth? What platforms do you think are most beneficial and why?
Q2. What are some of the characteristics that make a good social media site?
Q3. If you could change one thing about people’s behavior online, what would it be? How would you go about changing it?
Q4. How do we prepare ourselves—and our employees—to handle trolls and the like online? Do you have any formal training in place?
Q5. How do we strike a balance—personally and professionally—between time spent online and offline? Is a balance even necessary?
Q6. Why does the #HRTribe work? What’s unique about it, and what does it mean to you?
Q7. Looking 20 years into the future, what will we be saying about social media?
How To Participate in an #HR Twitter Chat
Andrew Morton is the Director of Veterans and Certification Affairs at SHRM.
In his role as the Director of Veterans and Certification Affairs at SHRM, Andrew Morton provides strategic leadership and direction for several of SHRM’s veteran, military-family, and disability hiring, retention and engagement programs. Andrew works with stakeholders across the military-service organizations to develop pathways for active-duty, veteran and military-family members to achieve relevant workforce credentials including SHRM’s Certification. Andrew also works with SHRM’s membership, and other partners to deliver resources that empower HR professionals, people managers, and business leaders in their inclusion-hiring, workforce-readiness, and employee-engagement efforts. This work includes SHRM’s initiative in support of second-chance employment through SHRM’s Getting Talent Back to Work initiative. He’s an award-winning speaker, delivering workshops and keynote sessions on the business case for and the business of integrating these highly-skilled talent pools into our workforce. In 2018, he was the contributing author to fellow-veteran Justin Constantine’s SHRM published book “From We Will to At Will- A Handbook for Veteran Hiring, Transitioning and Thriving in Today’s Workplace.”
Andrew also serves as spokesman for SHRM Certification in support of SHRM’s Chief Knowledge Officer, Dr. Alex Alonso. Prior to his current role within SHRM, Andrew spent five years serving as SHRM’s Director of Social Engagement, leading SHRM’s social media program and team.
Before joining SHRM in 2014, Andrew worked with a leading PR firm managing Fortune 500 brand and advocacy campaigns. Andrew is a retired Army Infantry-Officer who served in multiple leadership and command positions as well as overseas and combat tours including deployments to Iraq, Bosnia, Macedonia and Egypt. During his 21-year Army career Andrew also served in multiple senior public affairs positions including Chief of Media Outreach for Multi-National Force-Iraq, Chief of Marketing and Advertising for the Army Reserve, and the Director of Digital and Social Media for the Army Reserve.
Andrew is passionate about efforts to foster awareness and resources in support of mental health and our workplace- across all employees. Most importantly, Andrew serves as “Working-Dad” to his three wonderfully exhaustive kids at their home headquarters in Alexandria, VA.
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