I am a lifelong technologist. I have started or joined a number of reasonably successful projects and companies in my time. I've had some good exits, and I've had a lot of fun. I'm generally very passionate about what I do, and I love seeing the accelerating advancement of technology.
However, I am an absolute noob when it comes to social media. I set up a twitter account roughly three months ago, and I have been tweeting regularly since. After various articles convinced me that starting a blog would be an interesting experiment, I established a tumblr account and wrote my first blog entry, literally today.
That said, I really don't see the point. My experience with twitter has led me to the inevitable conclusion that nobody cares what one has to say on social media platforms -- and I don't understand the value of communicating into a vacuum.
So, I come to you, HN. What benefit is there of participating in social media? What am I missing? Thanks.
I don't use Facebook, but to me it sometimes seems like people use it as a substitute for socializing in real life. Since I'm somewhat of an introvert I prefer to keep a few friends that I really like instead of many friends that I don't like as much and Facebook seems to me to be the opposite of that. I may be wrong though and I guess people that like Facebook would disagree with me.
My thoughts on blogs have always been that they should be a creative outlet for your thoughts on one or several topics that you are really passionate about. You shouldn't write a blog to get an audience, but if you are passionate and write well I think you will organically grow an audience over time. A good thing about today's connected world is that any interest that you may have is probably shared by tens-of-thousands of people.
Speaking generally I think that "social media" is a bit of a misnomer at least compared to what I normally think of when I hear the word social (something like "seeking or enjoying the companionship of others").
Perhaps your expectations were more aligned with that definition of "social"?
On the other hand, if you don't enjoy it; don't participate! I'm not sure you will miss out on anything and at least it will be a point of discussion when you meet your friends in real life. :-)