Three years ago only my closest family and a couple of friends would take note of my birthday. This week I received almost 70 greetings. Welcome social media!
Warning: This blog post has no important message. It is just for fun. 
It was my birthday yesterday – and greetings poured in a wave I have never experienced before (Thanks to everyone!). Even people I haven’t met for almost 30 years found reason to congratulate me on my 47th birthday.
So I started thinking on my birthdays 3-4 years back and who congratulated me at the time.
Well, it was my mum, of course. She would always call. A couple of old aunts. My wife and three children. And a few other close relatives. Maybe up to ten people in total. At work it would go totally unnoticed (I have never been the guy to bring a cake to work and shout it out )
And this year? Let me sum up the birthday greetings and how they were given:
- With a kiss - 1 person, my wife
- With big hugs – 3 persons, my kids
- Personal greetings and smaller hugs – 10+ persons, all colleagues who had found out on Facebook
- SMS – 4 persons, three sister-in-laws and a 79 year old aunt
- Telephone - 1 person, my mother
- Facebook – 50 persons, from close relatives and friends to the most remote connections
- Twitter – 0 persons, although I have 1500 followers
All in all I received almost 70 greetings this year, approximately double the number from last year.
I could of course with a smile conclude that I must becoming more and more popular among people who know me. Imagine so many people spending time taking note of my humble birthday!
But of course it is rather a small and qute example of the power of social media. I should indeed send some thanks to Facebook which makes it easy for people to remember each other’s birthdays.
I took a quick count of the 50 Facebook greetings:
30 were from females, 20 from males. Many were young, like my nephews and nieces. 16 of the 50 were on my own age or older, most of them have joined Facebook during the last year. And 11 are living in other countries, some of them student friends from the US 25 years ago.
I think it is fair to say that only a few of these people would even think of giving me a birthday call 2-3 years ago. But then came social media.
And I love it. Thanks to Facebook I am suddenly able to stay in touch with all these people who have played a part in my life at some stage. There are a lot of good memories in the list of 50 greeters!
So thanks everybody for all your greetings! And I am curious how popular I will be next year – when even more of my old friends have joined Facebook.
