Last week two girls, ages 10 and 12, fell down a storm drain/sewer in Australia. They weren’t seriously hurt. (link to story)

But they were without any means to climb out and desperately needed help. Fortunately, one of the girls had a working cell phone with plenty of bars.

So, within minutes she pulled out her phone and…updated her status on Facebook. Her friends then called 000 (the Australian equivalent of 911) and help arrived soon thereafter.

You either admire the girls’ quick thinking and resourcefulness or you are recoiling in horror. If you’re like me – you’re simply left slack jawed.

Younger ‘Millennial’s’ have so adopted social media as a means to carry on regular dialogue with their friends that, at least in this case, they trust Facebook over calling 911 in a dire emergency.

The older you get of course, the more preposterous it seems.

But is it really?

Facebook is now beyond 250 million members and skyrocketing globally. Together with other social media, it is a standard mode of communication. Individuals, businesses, and government officials exploit the platform – finding new ways to use it every day.

Over the last 9 months, the number of users in the USA has grown 101%. But that’s nothing to Taiwan’s 1899%, the Philippines’ 1136% or Indonesia’s 879%.

The upside? Worldwide personal connectivity and the emergence of the true world marketplace. Going where no one has gone before.

The downside? It is growing as a standard of personal communication, taking the place of face to face and even voice to voice communication. Relationships are increasingly bound by skin deep connections rather than shared life experience.

In the virtual world of online gaming, Avatars ARE you in the community. They are not real – rather they are the perception you wish others to have of you in this alternate ‘reality.’

Is Social Media becoming an Avatar for personal relationships? A stand in for true friendship and professional bonds?

We may not like the answers to these questions, but we better figure out how to deal with their impact on our daily personal and professional lives. And take action.

Welcome to the continued evolution of society.

Posted by: Steve Banis