By Janette Speyer and Katrina McNeill

When it comes to the holidays, a lot of us spend a small fortune to be with the ones we love. This is the one time of year where most get a large chunk of time off and so many family holidays fall to this time period. Whichever holiday you are celebrating, we all try to use this time off to be with family and enjoy each other.  So how has social media changed this holiday? Has it changed it for better or worse? Let’s examine and we can all determine for ourselves.

Benefits

You can communicate with those you can’t get to

Whether it’s a status update, a tweet or a social e-card, we have a plethora of ways to keep in touch over the holidays. We can’t be in all places at once, but with social platforms, it seems we virtually can!

Your holiday can be shared with everyone

Thanks to that handy photo share feature, all your favorite moments are now available to your entire social circle. It’s nice to see how everyone celebrated their holiday and nice to be able to share your memories as well as have a place you can always go and look back on them.

Holiday shopping is easier

There is literally a Christmas gift list on your Pinterest board. No need to ask your sister, “Hey, what do you want this year?” Just browse her Pinterest to see!

Disadvantages

Social addiction

So you made it to the other side of the country, but now you can’t stop using your smartphone or tablet to check your Facebook every 5 minutes! We suggest you make that trip worth it and keep your gadgets in a drawer as often as possible!

Holiday shopping experience

It used to be a crazy adventure fighting the crowds in the highly decorated shopping center of your home town, now with gift widgets, Pinterest, EBay and Amazon, that holiday shopping experience will slowly start to disappear. For some, this should have gone in the benefits category, but perhaps for the nostalgic, it is a little sad.

Family time?

If you are responsible for your social media communication over the holidays, you obviously can just put up automated posts, but what will happen to the people who are trying to communicate with you? Are you going to monitor your social platforms all day to make sure they are being heard? Or wait until the holiday is over and risk an irate audience? We recommend the happy medium of leaving it to the end of the day rather completely ignoring or constant monitoring. Spend as much time as you can with your loved ones.

Weighing it all

Social media is essential for business, widespread and can offer some great tools for companies and individuals.  Over the holidays, it’s a great way to share your good times, but it’s frequency should be monitored.

How are you using social media this holiday season? Tell us your favorite social media holiday stories and share your thoughts on how it will affect your time with your family. Follow the conversation on Facebook and Google+.
 
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