Attach yourself to people not to apps.

In the past 14 hours I have…

Had a text conversation on WhatsApp with my college roommate about her visit from Chicago to Japan in a couple of weeks.

Had a Facebook conversation with another old roommate who lives in Washington DC about JaRule and his music circa 2001.

Had a iMessage conversation with my sister in London about a piece of art of hers I finally framed.

Also, a very important discussion about The Dress.

Emailed with a teacher (who I don’t know but met on Twitter) in Sydney about setting up a Skype conversation with her class and mine to talk about Japanese culture.

Had an amazing Twitter conversation with @traintheteacher (Singapore), @itsallaboutart (Singapore), @wayfaringpath (Thailand), and @JKSuth (Switzerland) about visual note-taking.

 

There is no rhyme or reason to why I choose a certain app to talk to a person. I flit between Twitter, FB, WhatsApp, iMessage. I’m as happy on FaceTime as I am on Skype as I am Google Hangout. I don’t think about what I’m using. I’m only thinking about talking and communicating and sharing.  Some of the ideas are silly and some are important (JaRule is important). But I live in magical times where I can talk to all my favorite people in many different ways in many different spaces..

And this is what our kids do. They do not care what tool they use. They have no loyalty to any app or any product. They just want to talk.

I’ve got a post brewing about our Digital Citizenship Week and how we track what apps our kids are using. And if there is one thing I know, what is the app for sharing and communicating today will be dead tomorrow.

So don’t get attached to any one space. The way you talk to the people around the world, strangers and friends, doesn’t matter. Do get attached to people and to ideas. Because they are what matter most.

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