"Fifteen minutes of terror." That washow a New Jersey woman described what she experienced when she heard of the earthquake in Haiti. Her daughter was a student performing mission work and was based in the devastated capital city of Port-au-Prince.

As a father, I could instantly understand the use of the word "terror," but the "15 minutes" stood out to me. I have read hundreds of stories over the years of family and friends spending long, tortuous periods wondering if their loved ones were safe after a disaster. How did this woman receive the news of her daughter's safety so fast? Facebook.

Due to the many connections, and connections to connections among the student group's Facebook friends, information that the students were outside the city that day-and that all were unharmed and safe-was posted on the website almost immediately, much to the relief of hundreds of people all over the U.S. With that single event, Facebook is likely to have generated hundreds of new fans.

Almost everywhere I turn these days, I see something about Web 2.0 and social media. Hopefully, most of us will never use it to allay 15 minutes of terror, but will, instead, use tools such as these to do things like stay in touch with family and friends around the world.

A colleague of mine says that Facebook has been helpful in keeping up with an old friend's battle with cancer. The patient doesn't have to field calls and give the same update repeatedly. Instead he pushes the information out once, to multiple recipients. When he gets phone calls, he can talk about something other than his struggles. For him, this is great.

NOT VERY SOCIAL

Social media is an intriguing way to gather and disseminate information quickly. Its uses are proving valuable to a lot of people. I, however, am not one of them. In fact, I am pretty much sick and tired of hearing about the topic. I have no Twitter account. I updated my LinkedIn information only after my staff reminded me I had set up a profile on there a few years ago. In a division of responsibility that works perfectly for us, my wife handles the Moisand family Facebook activities-all of which are purely nonbusiness related.

Social media has almost no chance of adding value to my practice for one main reason: At this point, I will not put any time into making it pay off. If that sounds to you like more of a knock on me than a knock on social media, you are right. My purpose for writing this column is not to bash social media per se, but to say to those of you who think as I do, it's okay (probably) if you don't jump on the bandwagon just yet, or maybe ever; you are not alone.

If you are active in social media and having success, God bless you. Hey, different strokes for different folks. I look forward to the day when you change my mind. For now though, please stop asking me to sign up to receive more messages. I get enough already.

Why am I so resistant? Well, let's start with first impressions. The term "follower" is creepy to me. I am running a professional service business, not a cult. For 20 years, I have been preaching to people that they do not need a guru to be financially successful. In most cases, seeking that Wall Street wizard with the unique insight that leads to outsized profit and undersized risk only ends up hurting your financial standing, as we saw in 2008.

During my career, I have engaged in an ongoing series of meetings with people who did this or that just because the guru who told them to do it sounded smart and had a good track record. When the inevitable tough time came-and it does come for everyone-they move on in search of the next genius.

For this reason, I implore people to stay away from business television and personal-finance websites. All too often, people feel the urge to act on a pithy sound bite or a "What stocks to buy now" article. If you take a deep breath and observe, you'll see six talking heads on the tube shouting over one another in an effort to come across better than the others. You will soon realize that not much of value is being said.

Personally, I work best with clients who are inclined to take that deep breath. The brevity and instantaneous nature of social media doesn't fit this profile very well.