Social Media . . .

Browsing through my Twitter timeline this evening, I noticed a link to another interesting post on Matthew Warner's blog.

In his post, he gives a list of insights based on recent statistics on social media published via a Youtube video.

Of the twelve items in Matthew's list, whilst all of them were interesting, some of them struck a particularly chord with me. (My comments in blue)

Over 50% of the world is under the age of 30.

i.e. What the young people in the Church are doing, how they are communicating, how well we are catechized and how authentic our lives are…matters…a lot.

'How well we are catechised and how authentic our lives are . . . matters . . . a lot.' How right he is. I think one of the best ways that all of us can help our young people is to be a good example of what it means to be a Catholic today. This means not only practising our faith but being informed about it and prepared to answer questions about what we believe and why.

iPod/iPhone applications hit 1 billion downloads in 9 months.

How many of them were Catholic apps? How many were made by Catholics? How many were actually good? Also - I’d love to see some creative and entertaining Catholic apps made by Catholics come out. Not just ones with lists of prayers (those are good, too, though).

I have just checked the apps on my iPhone. I have 68 (I was surprised to find it was so many!) in total at the moment and of them 9 of them are Catholic, mainly reference or liturgy/Divine Office based. I think all the Catholic apps I have are excellent and I use some of them daily.

The fastest growing segment on Facebook is 55-65 yr old females.

I thought this was one of the most interesting stats. While Facebook and other social media platforms are currently dominated by younger people, that is quickly changing.

Well, I guess I'm one of those 55-65 year-old females! What Matthew doesn't mention is that often once we 'oldies' latch onto something like this, it tends to make it less popular with younger people. After all, how many youngsters want to be associated with something that their parents, and even their grandparents are getting into? I don't know if this is the case with Facebook or not. It will be interesting to see if it can manage to keep its appeal for the youth at the same time as attracting a wider age-range of users.

Britney Spears has more twitter followers than the entire population of Israel, Ireland, Norway or Sweden.
How many spiritual leaders or positive role models get this kind of attention? Sad. But also an opportunity.

I would say there is definitely a Catholic presence on Twitter. In addition to many individuals, the Catholic press and Hierarchy are well represented. It seems to go hand in hand with blogging. Most bloggers are now on Twitter, I've noticed.

YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world.

How many Catholic videos are on there? How many have been viewed more than 18 times? How many are well-done and a good representation of our Catholic faith?

There are many Catholic videos on YouTube. Some of them are very well done, especially those produced in America, I've noticed, but there's certainly room for a lot more, and some are pretty dire but then again so are a lot of the other videos on YouTube.

Social Media isn’t a fad, it’s a fundamental shift in the way we communicate. Decades from now (if not already) we will look back on this time as just that, a fundamental shift in the way information is shared and communities are nurtured. Will the Catholic Church be one of the shining examples of success? Or one of the laggers-behind?

Sorry, this has turned out to be quite a long post but do go on over and have a look at Fallible Blogma to see the whole list. It makes interesting reading.