It’s the same old scenario:

The teenager argues, “But everyone else is doing it!”

And the parents reply, “I don’t care. We are not everyone else.”

In the best situations, the parents don’t budge and the teenager is spared. In the worst cases, the parents cave and the teenager compromises one value at a time until there are none left.

When it comes to Social Media, we are the teenagers and the parents. I often find myself tempted to join the next big thing just because everyone else is doing it. I want to keep current, I want to be in with the girls, and I want to be successful. First it was email. Then blogging. Then YouTube. Then affiliates. Then twitter. Then facebook. And now it’s pinterest and Google+. Just you wait: tomorrow there will be more. Sometimes it feels like I don’t even have a choice: as everyone else embraces each networking tool, I feel like I have to join them in order to achieve my goals.  So I join them. And I become just one more person making you feel like you have to join… And we all feed the giant together and no one knows how to stop.

Read the rest at Like a Warm Cup of Coffee…