(Genevieve Knapp)

When I have kids, I'm going to raise them in a box.

That's what I found myself thinking as I listened to Kim Lloyd, senior director of global marketing for McDonald's Corporation, talk about the creation of an online community where children can make profiles to talk about the movie Shrek.

What does it mean when kids stop begging for yo-yos and instead beg for a membership to online communities like Club Penguin? What does it mean for our society when people are spending more money on their avatar's hairdo than on their own?

One discussion group at the Social Media Marketing Symposium said that the budding phenomenon of social media represents a fundamental shift in society and in human interaction. They said man is a social animal, and online communities are a new medium for discourse.

When I was young, my parents put a password on our ponderous PC to prevent my brothers and me from playing hours of games. In the summer they'd unplug the TV, and we never wanted to brave the tangle of cords in the back of the cabinet to plug it back in.

It seems ironic that my older brother will graduate in a year with a degree in computer science and my younger brother spends all his hours hunched over his laptop making Flash animations. And I'm writing for the Internet.

I listened to Lloyd talk for a few more minutes, and then it hit me: If I raised my kids in a box, they'd be making forum posts on their mobile phones from inside the box.


Note: The Social Media Marketing Symposium May 9 was co-hosted by the Media Management Center and Kellogg School of Management. Genevieve Knapp is a student at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism. For more insights into social media issues and possibilities, go here for 19 excellent white papers and a bibliography about various facets of social media and here for Limor Peer's thoughful commentary on social media and the news media.


What do you think? Please share your thoughts, experiences and reactions by clicking on the comment button below or by e-mailing Media Management Center at v-vahlberg@northwestern.edu.