Brandon Moon
Introspective. Gadget Geek. Computer Whisperer. Amateur pianist and guitarist. Investigator of the social impact of technology. Married to the best person ever!
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Recently I had a friend decide to deactivate her Facebook account in favor of Twitter. This kinda interested me, as its a fairly unusual thing for people to do (hmmm, that’s a whole other interesting topic right there). I asked her why she had decided to do this, and she told me that a social network is a two way thing. You have to put energy into it in order to get something out of it. She felt like she wasn’t getting that much out of Facebook, and consequently was putting less and less into it. Finally she decided to just give up on it altogether. Twitter, for her, was a more interactive social network.
As I thought about it, it kinda sunk in. A social network is a two way thing. I don’t always feel like this is true with my networks. I feel like I put a lot into sharing things that I find interesting, and few people let me know that they appreciate it. Conversely, I spend a lot of time reading other peoples stuff, but rarely show appreciation, even for the things I really like. This isn’t really socializing, its more like shouting loudly at a group while they’re all shouting back at me. Nobody is really listening, and there’s no real interaction going on.
As ironic as it may seem, one of the best examples I have of actually interacting on social networks is my mother-in-law. Her interaction on Facebook is way more personal. I know that her reason for using Facebook is to keep in touch with her daughters, who are both married and far from home. They swap stories, share pictures and fun links, and generally catch up with each other on Facebook. It’s a subtle but effective way of saying “I love you” without being embarrassing. And since I’m now a member of the family, I get to be included too! I appreciate that she takes the time to click on and check out my weird and ridiculous links, and even comments on several. It makes me feel like my efforts to share on Facebook are validated. And that’s just cool.
And so, ironically, the big problem with social networks is that they often aren’t social enough. I guess it’s no surprise, but as it turns out: socialising takes effort, whether online or offline. Guess its time to go comment on more of my friends posts…
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(Click the link above for context)
Have you noticed how in real life, “friendship” is sort of a vague term, but it’s an extremely solid one online? Either you are friends with someone on Facebook, or you are not, right? And somehow this entitles you to knowing all sorts of things about this person, whereas in real life it’s much easier to pick and choose what you share with whom? And then what happens when you don’t care to be that person’s friend anymore? In real life, you simply fall out of contact (and this can happen for any number of reasons; it’s rarely an explicit action), but online you have to explicitly say “I don’t want to be your friend anymore.” Or perhaps you just hide them. But maybe there’s too many to do that to. Or maybe you just don’t like an empty news feed.
At it’s core, that’s what this article is about. It’s comparing fundamental similarities and differences in social interaction, both online and in real life. The similarities are usually pretty obvious and intuitive. In real life, we all have a little bit of vanity or ego. We do count friends, just not with numbers. When we are bored, we call up our friends. There’s always a bit of awkwardness with establishing and avoiding friendships. And everyone likes and dislikes different things about everyone else. It stands to reason that social networks—both offline and offline—essentially accomplish the same thing. It also makes sense that both are susceptible to the same follies.
Because both are so similar, I think we probably tend to focus too much on the differences. This is not a bad thing in and of itself, but it does cause us to develop a negative attitude towards social networks. The truth is, those differences probably aren’t so bad. As human beings, we have an express need to communicate, and we always find a way. Maybe it means adapting how we use social networks to communicate, but we still do it. We create our own “social norms” around our social networks that makes them more useable for all. Pretty neat huh?
And for some reason, I find this all so fascinating.
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Picture yourself back in your dating years. You meet this cute, fun, attractive girl or boy and start going out. Things are going well for a while, but then they lose interest and break up with you (Sad story, I know, but… keep reading). You call, you try to change his or her mind, but it looks like things aren’t working out. Maybe they stop answering your calls, or they find ways to avoid you. Eventually you learn to accept their decision, and you move on. Contact has been broken. We’ve probably all been through it.
Now flash forward to today. Maybe you’re happily married by now, maybe you’ve got a significant other, maybe not. But for some reason, you can’t resist the temptation to look up your old flame online. You can find all sorts of details on their life, if they’re married or dating someone, where they live, what they do, what they find interesting, who they still associate with, etc. You might even go so far as to send a friend invite on Facebook and try to “rekindle” the friendship, which can lead to trouble.
Why do we do it?
Or maybe a better question is: should we do it?
Twenty or thirty years ago, this wouldn’t have been as big of an issue. In order to “catch up” with this person, you’d either have to actually talk to them, or basically stalk them. There wasn’t a whole lot of middle ground. But nowadays, that person is actively posting status updates and information about themselves on the web, almost asking you to stalk them. It’s way to easy to find out information about someone else—even if you’re not friends with them on Facebook. Some how I’ve become an “active non-participant” in so many of my friend’s lives. I don’t talk to them anymore, either online or in real life, but somehow I know that they just had a baby, his name is so-and-so, he’s 7 lb. 12 oz. with black hair and blue eyes, he was born at X hospital, and on and on. I’ve even seen pictures of him online. Should I really know all this about someone I haven’t spoken to in years?
Maybe it’s time we realized that we need to set some online social boundaries. I really like this article posted by one of my friends. It talks mostly about social etiquette and how to be more careful about what we share. I think we should take it a bit further, and perhaps be a bit more careful about how we browse.
We need to put our online lives at a lower priority than then our non-virtual lives. Call or email your friends and let them know what’s going on in your life before you broadcast it on Facebook. Stay away from the more “serious” online discussions — leave that for in-person communication. If you discover that someone is in a tough situation, reach out to them in real life rather than leaving a half-hearted comment online. Don’t forget that online social media is meant to enrich our existing relationships, not replace them.
Don’t get caught in the “social spiderweb.”
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Or in other words… why I’m not that excited about Google+.
First thing’s first, Google+ is built very well. It’s use of “Circles” is a very good idea (especially the fact that you don’t have to be following people following you - worst part of Facebook). Plus it has some cool features like “Hangouts” and “Huddles.” I also like the clean design, the way that it integrates with all your existing Google services, and lack of annoying 3rd party applications.
In short, Google+ is basically what I wanted in a social network.
So why don’t I like it?
Because it’s too late in the game to introduce a new social network.
Think about it. Right now I’m juggling Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Tumblr, and the myriad of other small utilities that have a “social” feature. The last thing I need is another network. Facebook is already keeping track of my contacts, Twitter lets me share links and little fun things, LinkedIn is a great professional network, and Tumblr lets me blog.
Where does Google+ fit in?
For me, it really doesn’t. Granted, not everybody is in the same situation as me, but still… I just don’t want to have to worry about managing Google+ alongside everything else. Not to mention that I have to wait for all the cool browser extensions and mobile apps to be developed before I can really use it the way I would want. Oh, and of course, the mobile web version isn’t supported on my phone (but that’s a gripe for another day).
When we cut down to the core of the issue, we find this: the reason I want a social network is for the network. Not the cool features, not really even the privacy concerns, but the network. Because really, it’s all about having that connection to the people I want to reach. Facebook has some cool features, Google+ has some cool features, and Twitter has some cool features, but basically I use them to do the same thing: to connect and share with my network! Unfortunately, I have to rebuild that network every time a new service comes along. This is super ineffective.
Email is genius. I register for an address — doesn’t matter who I register with, could be Google, Yahoo, Windows Live, or even Facebook — and anyone else that has an email address can email me! Doesn’t matter who they register with either, they can still “connect” with me. New email clients are built all the time, and I can switch without breaking links to my existing “network.” Pure genius!
I submit that this is what we need for social networks. Some sort of agreed upon standard for social networks, such that different “registrars” (Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) can communicate between each other. That way I can reach my network through Google+, or through Facebook, or through Twitter. Then I just pick my preferred interface, and meanwhile the big companies are competing over a better interface and better services (kinda like they’re already doing).
In the meantime though, I probably won’t be using Google+ very much. Quite frankly, it’s just too much for me.
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Really interested to see what this turns out like.
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I remember one evening as a kid when my Dad came upstairs from our TV room. Earlier, my siblings had been watching a movie that, for whatever reason, they weren’t supposed to be watching. I think they had been told to go to bed, or something like that. Anyhow, he came upstairs with a huge grin on his face, carrying the plug to the TV. Just the plug. He had literally cut it off as a way of punishing us for watching too much TV. My sister cried. A lot.
Though it may not have seemed so at the time, it was probably one of the best things he could have done for us. Lucky (or maybe unlucky) for us, my Dad is an electrical engineer. He rigged up our TV’s power cord to a lock and key. When the key was in, the TV worked; when the key was out, the TV wouldn’t even turn on. It was a brilliant way for him to control how much TV we watched as a family without cutting us off completely. It taught me that TV is something to be controlled, not something we should let control us.
TV can be sort of like a drug to us. It rewards us in the short-term, but leaves us with long-term regrets. It can be addictive. It can lead to unhappiness. “OK,” you say, “this isn’t a big surprise. I’ve known this for a while.” True, but what I find interesting is that it doesn’t actually change our habits much. Even more interesting, though, is that we’ve had TV since 1927, and we’re only just discovering all the social and personal effects.
That kind of scares me.
Why?
Because the Internet is way more prevalent in our lives now, and we’ve only had it for about 30 years. How is it affecting us? How is social networking affecting us, like Facebook and Twitter? We can already see how it’s pulling us apart, and yet we do little to stop it.
Here’s a great article about how TV gives us a feeling of vicarious friendship through watching unrealistic images of groups of friends that spend all their time together. We want deep social interaction, but we turn to cheap imitations of this through Facebook and TV:
This decline in real friendships may account in part for the dramatic rise of virtual friendships like those on social-networking sites where being “friended” is less a sign of personal engagement than a quantitative measure of how many people your life has brushed and how many names you can collect, but this is friendship lite. Facebook, in fact, only underscores how much traditional friendship — friendship in which you meet, talk and share — has become an anachronism and how much being “friended” is an ironic term.
Perhaps we should take the advice of the first article and go back to reading books. They’re one of the few things untouched by the media and advertising — for a little while longer, at least.
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Interesting article about casual gaming, and how it’s influencing society.
