Yesterday (August 26) at 6:45 Alison Parker, a young newspaper reporter at WDBJ, and Adam Ward, a camera person, for the Virginia TV station were tragically murdered by a former employee of the station.
The killer created Facebook and Twitter accounts to post his videos of the murders.
Within a couple hours of the murder Chris Hurst, a news anchor at the station, posted romantic pictures of Alison with him and shared the news that they had moved in together recently.
In the world of 2015 this shooting is horrible… but the social media activity somehow seems perfectly normal…
I posted pictures of my dog visiting with my mother at her assisted-living home yesterday. My daughter “stages” and then posts every restaurant meal on Instagram before dining.
All of this would have seemed weird a decade or so ago.
What does this mean? Are we now living our lives on social media. Is the Facebook timeline our life? Did something really happen if it is not recorded on social media? Is the “real world” becoming artificial as we stage Facebook, Instagram, Periscope and Snapchat moments? Are we all narcissists? Is reality online?
What do you think????????
Social Media Marketing 4 Business 
Use of social media is as wide and varied as its users. For marketers there is generally a strategy behind posts, online and IRL engagements. Remember going to association meetings to meet kindred folks and catch up on what’s new? I see Twitter chats, Periscope, LinkedIn groups, podcasts, etc. as modern day digital adaptations. Today’s user has a broad comfort range when it comes to what and how they choose to share information. Whatever the reasons or purpose, we should all remember that the dark side of the Internet lurks in the corners and shows its ugly head from time to time to remind us that it is alive and well. IRL and also the digital world it’s “user beware”.
I might be a dinosaur but I don’t post anything really ‘personal’ at Facebook in the sense of involving / ‘tagging’ other people, especially friends or relatives who are not on Facebook. It still feels a bit weird to see such posts in my stream. But I am disturbed more by friends’ opinions ‘I never wanted to know about’, about topics I would try to avoid in real life when talking to them. Like politics, the current EU’s refugee crisis for example.
‘Ironically’ I think my FB persona must look like that of somebody devoid a social life because of that.