Creeping social-ish-ism

I attended a social-media forum the other day that answered a few questions but raised more. The guest speaker had forgotten her airline ticket in Chicago, and without enough time to retrieve it from home, returned to her house and took questions by Skype from her kitchen. Much of the event was dedicated to praising the committee members in Denver who made the linkup possible.

They did do an excellent job, and interviewing a social-media consultant via Skype is of course perfectly apt. I also admired the guest for responding to a question about the downsides of always-on connectedness by conceding that it was fatigue that led her to forget her ticket.

But the entire time I was wondering: she forgot her what at home? How is it even possible to forget an airline ticket at home anymore? It's years since I've even seen an airline ticket, let alone held one. When you get to the airport these days you swipe this or scan that or print the other thing, and off you go. The only way to be denied boarding is to be a suspected terrorist or fat, and unless Skype is incredibly flattering, this lady wasn't fat. If my parents can navigate an airline Web site or kiosk, so can a social-media guru.

I learned a lot about tactics (for example, how to begin using social media even in a heavily regulated industry like securities or health care, which is of interest to me in my current job) but came away with the same feeling I get after receiving an unintelligibly mis-punctuated message from a Blackberry: that there is no point using social media to "connect" and "engage" if we're simultaneously allowing them to make us dumb.