Role of social media in my travel life

After spending the last two days on expanding my knowledge on social media networks such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn I came to the conclusion that it doesn't matter where you are in the world, the news and your friends know where to find you. 

I remember opening my Facebook account only because of my friends. What is this Facebook, I don't need this I have Hyves. Who needs Facebook when you have Hyves? But I surrendered and opened my first Facebook account. It didn't mean much to me in the beginning but now, I am ashamed to tell you this, it rules my world. It is the first thing I open when I start my computer and I am brave enough to admit that I can spend a whole day behind my computer checking my account every five minutes. I know this sounds pathetic though it is time for me to admit this to the world. Yes, I am an Facebook addict. 

And it even gets worst. Since I decided to write my thesis in regard to social media I had to dig deeper. I need to know what is going on in this fast changing, never sleeping world of unlimited information. Therefore, I opened my first Twitter account yesterday. Till 30 September 2010 I could stay out of the hands of Twitter though had to bend my back to it finally. I keep telling myself it is all for my thesis, all for the good cause. However, I saw myself totally getting sucked into the world of Twitter, Facebook and Hootsuite over the last, what, 48 hours! It's ridiculous how much information is out there! So many things you can and have to do to get the attention of the people around you.

I noticed that it does not matter where I am on this planet, if I promote myself in the right way everybody can find me. As my parents live in Holland, I study in Austria, live at the moment in New Zealand and have many friends from all over the world, this is very convenient. With one post on Facebook everybody knows what I am up to. Or even better, I go into Hootsuite and post the same in Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn all at the same time. It opened my eyes to a very interesting and easy way of staying in touch with everybody I know, or who knows me.

Over the last 48 hours I opened my Twitter account and posted about 20 tweets, got 12 followers and started following 24. I posted a new post on my blog which my friend Kate posted on many different websites. In only 2 days my posts was watched twice as much as it had been over the last 6 months! If I am out there, on the web, interacting with many different websites, people will find me. It's scary to know that it is so easy to post all your personal information out there although it feels so good to see that people are actually interested in you. I checked the Stats for my blog and discovered that, although I am from Europe and have never even been to the US, my largest group of followers is from the this country... Now new questions came to my mind. Why are these people reading my blog? It must be interesting to them. Now I need to keep this level up and start writing interesting stuff all the time, or most of the time. 

I don't want to say that being, suddenly, out there changed my mind although it feels like an addiction. I suddenly want to increase the number of followers on my Twitter account whereas I normally wasn't interested in this at all. Start posting some serious links on my Facebook account   and not just status updates. I feel the need to have more people reading my blog. Where does this come from? Why does social media intrigues me so much? It is a world I never was really interested in although now I am in it I wish I started this earlier. With me travelling around the globe, living in different countries all the time, it makes it so much easier to keep up with everybody... and everything. 

Social media is not a fad, it's a trend! It is amazing, fascinating, fast, alive and booming! Thank you Twitter and Facebook for opening my eyes! 

To be or not to be..... a backpacker

I was just sitting on the patio at the lovely house I am living in knitting yet another beanie and could not help thinking about the reasons why people decide to go backpacking. I could only come up with some of them.

Why do people motivate themselves to cram their life in a 23kg backpack to travel around the world, live on pasta and soup, sleep in noisy, smelly, hostels with snoring or sleep talking drunk people, wear the same clothes till they look like something the cat dragged in, wake up next to somebody you cannot remember the name from, make hideous pictures, post them on Facebook and call it 'an amazing experience', call your parents cause you need more money to expand your cultural knowledge of the different kinds of beers you hostel bar is selling, add heaps of 'friends' on Facebook, go to every party where you can get free beer by playing games you would not even consider doing at home, apologize to your boyfriend the next day for the shocking pictures your 'friends' added you in on Facebook, jump from a bridge cause you suddenly have the courage to do so.

Snog numerous other backpackers from the other or same sex, take photos from this as well and explain your friends you try before you buy, fall desperately in love, ditch your travel friend, take off with the love of your life, discover he is not your knight in shining armor, spend more money to go back to your friend, make up with yet some more beers, jump on another plane to an even more exotic destination, get bitten by insects you cannot pronouns the names from, try to explain the doctor you are not an alcoholic you just need to wash your clothes, fall out of the bunk bed while having sex with your new catch, wake up all the people in the room by doing so, invite them for a 'Im sorry you saw me naked' beer, find a new hot guy, sleep with him in the lower part of the bunk bed, embarrass yourself in the pharmacy while answering the questions to get the morning after.

Fall asleep on the street, wake up at the police station, explain yet again you are not an alcoholic, call your parents again for more money to spend on more cultural experiences, pretend to be a lesbian with your friend to shock guys, get into mud wrestling, feel guilty of not contacting home, try to post something serious on Facebook, drink more beer but do not forget the local beverages, jump out of a plane cause you are forced to do it, get drunk before you jump out of the plane, blame it on the guy who took you out drinking the night before for the lovely, sick photos of your jump, get really cold, curse every day about something ridiculous, get an extreme sunburn and tell everybody you always get that red before you gain color, complaint about the sunburn in secret to your mum.

Tell everybody you will catch up with them later, forget who you promised to catch up with, take more pictures of hot guys, get into a wet shirt contest, post serious stuff on your blog to keep the home front happy, decide you are not going home again, let your friend convince you of hunting a sheep, hook up with locals to get a free accommodation, tell your parents they should send you money if they want to have you home again, get on the plane and come back home completely broke, tired and with a weird sexual disease.

But this are just some of the reasons I could think of....