# Following on from his previous post Mark Dykeman takes a look from a contrary point of view and says that being a Role Model 3.0 may not be such a great thing due to the time involved in out reach.
His model of the different role model types shows that role model 3.0 will have a high authority but, in my view this does not automatically imply a high availability.
What is a role model?
To use the same definition as Mark:
"a person whose behavior, example, or success is or can be emulated by others, esp. by younger people."
In a social media context this would mean someone who "gets it" and therefore is an authority on what social media is can how it can be used effectively. As such , people are going to want to emulate their online behaviour.
In the context of my previous post where we are looking at how ordinary people can be educated about social media and it can be made a mainstream means of communication it is the role models who will obviously be blazing the trail.
To twist a well known phrase:
"With authority comes great responsibility"
Mark expresses concern over the time a role model may have to devote to their "status" but, surely it is better to have a role model who demonstrates how social media can be used in conjunction with our existing lives and not instead of them. They would, by necessity need to unplug and not be the type who spends all their time on twitter when they could be doing something else. The average person would not want to emulate this behaviour anyway so, by definition, the social media addict couldn't actually be a role model.
Balance
If we are to encourage those people with normal lives, normal jobs and families to use social media then the best example to set is one of balance. We don't want to create a world where people only communicate virtually; social media is a facilitator, not the end product.
We must show how social media can be used responsibly without detriment to other aspects of life otherwise it will always be seen as the playground of the geek who is "always on" and thus never go mainstream.
Your take
What do you think makes a good social media role model? How can we lead the way and educate those who have not yet experienced social media or realised what it can achieve?
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