Everything is meta

I've grown fond of listening to podcasts because I can do it while on a bus, train or plane. I'm amazed at how much I can listen to while traveling or just normal commuting. This week, one of the podcasts I listened to was Mitch Joel's Six Pixels of Separation #178 - Media Hacks #20 Live (To Hard Drive) From New York City (54 min. Rated "L" for language).

The Media Hacks version of his podcasts are round table discussions. This one really interested me because they discussed the use of Twitter at conferences, which then morphed into talking about the fact that "everything is meta". Rather than living in the moment, people are living in the details and providing a comprehensive (meta) commentary of their lives. For example, this couple updated their Facebook pages at during their wedding ceremony, while others are sharing granular details of their lives. If you are doing that, can you really be enjoying what you're doing? If you are tweeting about every song during a concert, are you really being part of the audience and part of the live experience?

Maybe when people talk about what they don't like about social media this is what they are really talking about. They don't want meta. They don't appreciate that level of detail. And perhaps when they see people providing that level of detail about their lives online, they wonder if these people are really being present in their lives or if they are just observing their lives.

As you can tell, I was really fascinated with the discussion. I know I'll do some more thinking on this and I suspect this will change how I use social media.