If you aren’t utilizing Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter, you are missing out and you are unnecessarily aging yourself.  As an instructor of working adults returning to college, I learned many were too quick to dismiss these “newer” tools as irrelevant. 

It is always difficult to understand why something new might benefit you when you’ve gotten along without it. Consider cell phones as an example.  How about digital photography?  Remember life before the Internet? Change is inevitable and when you fail to embrace change, you are often left behind. These social networking tools are not exactly new, but they are so increasingly popular that there has become yet another form of digital or cyber divide. 

While you aren’t on Facebook, you could be missing out on important connections with family, friends and coworkers.  While you aren’t utilizing Linkedin as a networking tool, your colleagues and competitors are.  Not embracing Twitter means you may not learn about upcoming work-related discussions, appearances by your favorite celebrities or the answer to a problem you are unable to solve.