The Real Side of Social Media

I had friends in college who played that ridiculous Sims game. My over-simplified idea of it ran along the lines of a fake world that real people orchestrated from the computer. I think sometimes people view social media the same way. That the people we talk to on Twitter and Facebook aren’t “real” people or “real” friends.

They are.

I had the privilige of hosting Chris Heins of @FarmerHeins Twitter fame this weekend. He’s a dairy farmer from Missouri, and I’m pretty sure we’re friends.

I learned all about things like days in milk, the fresh pen, milk tanks and calf huts. I feel like I can hang with the dairy boys a bit better now that I’ve got a handle on the lingo. And I wish I had a picture of him describing the barn set-up and flushing system using my kitchen table placemat.

He learned about beef cattle, border collies and riding horses. He got to see garbanzo bean fields, wheat harvest and an old-time threshing bee. I love where I live, and showing it to a friend this weekend helped me see it with fresh eyes.

It’s not just avatars and 140 characters. Social media people are real. The friendships are real. The conversations are meaningful, and the opportunities to learn are boundless.

Thanks to Chris, I now have a broader agricultural knowledge base. That’s awesome, and it wouldn’t have happened without social media. It’s a small world, but I doubt I would have bumped into him in the grocery store or on the airplane.

Social media is a powerful landscape for learning more about agriculture. Embrace it; there’s always something more to learn.