We have all seen how rapidly all of the social networks are growing. Myspace and facebook are just 2 in a sea of endless networks. Nowadays you can find a social network to cater to any niche you are interested in. So with all the extra time that we are spending on like making “friends, connections, fans, and followers,” are people really being brought together or are they just living under a technology facade that is actually keeping them apart?
The trouble with a lot of social networks of course is that people can be anybody. You never really know for certain who you are talking to. Is Dan that picture that you see on his facebook profile? Does he really go to college? Well his profile says so, so it must be true. I suppose the same can be argued for meeting someone in person right? I mean people can pretend in real life just as well as they can pretend online, however, online it is just far easier to fake an identity and make yourself into anyone you want to be. The reasons for that is that your online identity relies on text and images, nowadays you can write whatever you want and find any picture you want. Those of you familiar with Seth Godin may have heard about his little story with twitter. Apparently Seth Godin was on twitter sharing his posts and talking to people, currently he has over 6,000 followers. The problem is, it’s not really Seth Godin that’s on twitter. Someone took his picture and some of his information, stuck it online and boom, Seth Godin is on twitter. This prompted Seth to write a post to his readers telling them that he is not the twitter Seth Godin. How else would we know?
Let’s look at something else for a moment, time. Now, do you think people spent more time out and about meteing people 10 years ago then they do now? and do you think social networks had something to do with that? So my question to you is, are social networks actually taking the SOCIAL aspect away? Sure we can browse peoples profiles (that we must trust) and chat with them online, but the quality of the connection is just not as strong as an in person connection (in my opinion). Terms like friends and fans are becoming cliche, does a “friend” really mean something anymore? Now, to get a friend all you have to do is go on facebook and click a button, is that what we call a friend? My point with all of this is that social networks are a great way to spend time online and to meet people (online!) but let’s not forget about the real world, let’s not forget what a friend really is.
There are of course other issues with social networks such as the “me generation,” check out the “twitter whore” below to find out what I mean.
Part 1
Part 2
Is this what we are cultivating and encouraging now? This is a topic for another post, but in short the answer is yes, for some people, however it not fair to make this generalization for all people who use a social media platforms.
Ask yourself a few questions, have you made more friends (real friends, or whatever you call a friend) since you started using social media platforms? Are the quality of your online friends the same online as they are offline?
I just wonder if we may be spending too much time online and not enough time offline with real people.
So what do you think, are social networking bringing us together, or keeping us apart?
Thanks for reading
Hi Jacob,
Nice post. I’ve had a few conversations on this topic lately. I can only speak for myself personally. I have hands down made many more “real world” friendships through social channels than I ever would have without them. I can say that as an absolute fact. And, not only that, but my real world relationships grow and cement as a result of interactions I have through social networks.
I view the social web as an extension of the real world, what makes it any less real? I’ve participated in so many social discussions, innovations and conversations that have had a positive impact on my life and others both online and off.
Hi Jackie,
Thank you very much for the insightful post. It’s great to know that you can use online relationships and bring them into the offline world. I think there is a gap between the two. It’s not to say that that online world is necessarily any less real, however it is “different” it revolves around ones and zero’s and bits of data.
Hope to hear from you again soon!
With so many social networks out there now, it’s difficult finding one related to your subject of interest or marketing niche. I find Google to be inefficient as it returns too many irrelevant results. The best resource I have come across to find niche social networks is the search engine http://findasocialnetwork.com
thanks for the comment earnest, i will check out the site. hope to hear more from you in the future.
thanks for reading
There is definitely a difference between online relationships and ‘real’ ones. Clifford Stoll warned about this twenty years ago. It goes hand in hand with cocooning, where we stay home and entertain ourselves rather than going out and interacting with flesh-and-bloods. I feel there is an extra kind of reality at large in the world and our language isn’t quite able to deal with it.
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Hi Glenn,
great points. i agree with you and also think there is a huge difference between the two types of relationships, I also think one can strengthen the other.
thanks for reading and commenting, hope to here more from you soon!
Hi Jacob,
A good post! I definitely use social networks to support my real life connections. They definitely are not a subsitute for meeting people face to face. They also provide a way of keeping in touch with people that I don’t necessarily otherwise meet too often. I agree that it’s by no means the same as meeting those people face to face, but without social networks I might lose touch with them altogether.
For some people they seem to be much more, even coming close to replacing real life. I don’t know if that’s the trend but I sure hope it’s not.
Now I’m talking about general social networks like Facebook here. When it comes to niche purpose networks like LinkedIn then it’s another case. They actually can provide real benefits for the user too. 🙂
Jacob,
These are brilliant questions — i love this post.
I look at my social networking efforts (twitter, facebook & linkedin) as an a potential link or a tie to real world, real people and real solutions. But i treat these networks with the same approach that I have in the real world — and to me its the key to this answer. In other words i don’t scan page by page looking for facebook friends, don’t invite people to join my network just because they are out there. I try to seek out the ‘like minds’, whether i know them or not. Sometimes this model works, sometimes not. But i must say, I am very happy when a social network ‘friend’ or connection ends up being a real world connection as well.
Like most things in life, the quality of these online relationships depend greatly on trust, honesty and personal transparency.
Andy
@Juha
i agree, social networks are definitely no substitute for in person connections.
thanks for commenting, when are you coming back to sf to visit?
@andy
well thank you so much for the compliment!
I agree with you, I think social networks are great for meeting like minded people and make the in person connections that much more powerful.
thanks both of you for reading and commenting, hope to hear more from you in the future!
Saw this via the conversation you started on LinkedIn. I like the post, but those videos are going to haunt me for the rest of my life 🙁
In all seriousness, Twitter does have some major noise control issues. I usually unfollow people at the first sign of “giving my dog a bath,” “I TOTALLY LOVE CEREAL,” and so on.
@aaron
haha they are rather haunting aren’t they? there are definitely some people on twitter that are on there to boost there own egos, of course that is another discussion. i try to post relevant content when possible, and try to share interesting stories/links/etc.
thanks for commenting and thanks for reading, hope to hear more from you soon!
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