Social Media: Changing The Way We Communicate

My wife and I recently had a brand-new baby. Our latest addition, Alexander James, is number four - so we’re not new to the baby game. What is new is the way in which the entire process was communicated to friends and family.

On February 10th, I got the call from my wife: she’d gone to her final pre-natal visit, and she was already in labor a day before her scheduled induction. As I gathered up things and headed home, I tweeted the news (a task which I’ve also set up to update my Facebook status):

Labor has already started, so it looks like the baby is coming on his own before tomorrow. Heading to the hospital shortly. 11:49 AM Feb 10th

I got home, got things ready, waited for my cousin to swing by to watch the other kids, and headed out to the hospital. We arrived at the hospital, and my wife underwent the first barrage of questions. The attending nurse, sensing her evident discomfort (and the fact that this wasn’t her first trip to the maternity ward) sped us through. I tweeted again, this time from my web-enabled smart phone:

Straight to labor and delivery, do not pass triage. (4th kid has its privileges) 1:24 PM Feb 10th from mobile web

As we got settled in our room, and the real medical history inquisition piled on, I broadcast my frustration:

Goodness, it’s 240,000 questions at the hospital. I thought they were going to break out the waterboarding equip. and k-fed album. 2:19 PM Feb 10th from mobile web

Within the hour, we hit trouble. The nurses rushed to the room, hurriedly checking monitors and printouts and looking very concerned. They tried to downplay it as they called for the obstetrician. Something had happened, and the baby’s heartrate decelerated rapidly. Through a combination of medication and re-positioning, they managed to stabilize the situation. They also began the induction to move things along. Nervous and powerless, I clicked away at my phone again:

Little scare - his heart rate dropped suddenly - but they broke her water and put in an internal monitor and everything looks ok now. 3:04 PM Feb 10th from mobile web

All day long, this is how things went. The slow pace of waiting punctuated by updates via Twitter, or my responses to well-wishes on mobile Facebook as my nearly 300 friends on that network had simultaneous, instant access to every bit of news (no matter how insignificant) I chose to publish. During the entire process - some seven hours from start to finish - I didn’t pick up the phone to call anyone even once. In fact, the first and only call I made was after the birth, when I let my oldest know she had a brand new baby brother. The rest of the world found out like this:

Ladies and gents, I’m proud to announce the arrival of Alexander James Skojec! 7lbs, 8oz and 20 inches. 6:43 PM Feb 10th from mobile web

It didn’t end there. In the delivery room, I also had my Nikon D40, a Flip Video Ultra, and a wi-fi enabled laptop. Since the hospital had open wi-fi, I quickly went to work. Before the obstetrician had even left the delivery room, I had several good photos and a video uploaded, the latter facilitated by the Flip camera’s integrated and easy to use software, which interfaces directly with YouTube.

It’s only been two years since we had our last baby, and most of the capabilities I used to keep everyone informed of our progress were either out of my reach or simply didn’t exist back then. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again - social media empowers instantaneous, rich, multimedia communication with a wide network of contacts in a way that is entirely unprecedented.

But with it comes some questions. Such as the one my parents (who DO use Facebook) were probably asking - “When am I going to get that personal phone call letting me know what’s up…?”

What do you think? My ability to update everyone at once clearly (and with photos and video) was an advantage for me on a hectic day that gave unusual access to people who could not be with us. Does this change the obligation I once had to reach out and make the personal contact that family events like new babies were once synonymous with, or is my social networking approach going to become more and more common without hurting feelings and leaving people feeling left out?

New capabilities, new questions.

Posted by Steve Skojec on April 13, 2009 at 4:04 PM
in Communication, Family, Social Media

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COMMENTS (3)

Steve this is a great post- I didn’t know how connected you were with the birth of your newest son but it does bring up new questions.

Two years ago I was blogging about how I’m finding out about marriages, engagements, and pregnancies on Facebook- now we are almost in a lifecasting society.

Posted by: Patrick | April 13, 2009 at 6:53 PM

Great post, Steve. I love all the new capabilities — your son’s birth is the perfect example of how using them can enrich our lives. (It was amazing to be able to follow your updates!)

But, I do think we have to set some limits. An incident in our family a few years ago involving important health info being shared over email caused us to step back and have a discussion about what should or should not be delivered via email, text, Facebook, etc. We decided that for our family, major news requires personal phone calls. There’s something about people making that extra effort to pick up the phone that helps us feel closer when dealing with or celebrating whatever the news may be.

That said, the last two babies in our family were announced via text message – with follow-up calls made soon thereafter.

Posted by: Lisa | April 14, 2009 at 12:09 PM

I love your post - and any baby updates that I can get, no matter how you send them. That being said, and I know that you’ll laugh when you read it (maybe in a “Wow, that’s sad” way) that my parents only have email, won’t click on YouTube links to see grandbabies (love the Flip cam; thanks for introducing me to it!), and the email is so slow where they are (land line issue) that they can’t/won’t download photos either. So, lucky for you, your family is with it…but for those of us who have members with technology issues is the answer “too bad so sad” - are we leaving them in the dust with family updates and important matters?

Posted by: MT | April 15, 2009 at 11:58 AM

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