How Social Media Can Make Us Antisocial

Like it?

comments

Posted February 10, 2012 with 245 reads

Keywords: Business Transformation, Social Enterprise, social media

The more prevalent social media becomes and the closer we become as a society we seem to be more and more stuck on the differences. Quick social media interactions also seem to be replacing deeper, real life relationships and interactions.

The theme’s been going around. Mahandra Palsule (@scepticgeek), who’s an editor at Techmeme also wrote about the topic and sparked my comment:

I’ve actually been pondering how the ubiquity of social media + data with mobile context has turned “social” into something seemingly unsocial. It’s cool that I can open an app and pull up information about locations aggregated from thousands of other’s updates, rating and pictures, but their just data at this point, there’s nothing social about it. Then add to this the shifts in the Web from open to proprietary platforms. and all of a sudden social media is starting to indeed look anti-social.

But I’ve been thinking more on the topic and decided to record a video yesterday while I was in Brussels. I apologize for forgetting to turn off the music and some bad framing. My only excuse is that this was really early in the morning.

I’d love to hear your thoughts.

» Already a member? Login now to comment!

» Not a member? Register to comment!

Like it?

Elizabeth Berry said:

Hello, Tac.

Interesting that your ruminations on this topic reached a point where you felt compelled to put them out here on a video. Although I don't exactly think that social media is making us antisocial, I do share many of your "concerns". I especially think your candy analogy hits the nail on the head. To extend your metaphor, like candy social media interactions can be addicting but because the calories (i.e. "energy") they provide are mostly empty it takes huge amounts of interactions (calories) to add up to real nurishment (productive contacts). On the one hand, although it takes a lot of time and thought commitment to build and maintain one's presence in the social media realm, because we're interfacing through the filter of our computers and the Web the emotional energy required in a person to person interaction is short-circuited. On the other hand, Interacting with people face to face in physical networking environments or even on the phone requires more emotional energy yet has the potential to yield much more nourishment for us socially, emotionally, and, as you point out, is very important for building the best possible work relationships. Finding the balance between time spent between maintaining one's authentic social media presence and building real-world relationships and getting projects done has become the biggest challenge of building a successful business - especially for a solo practitioner who must wear all the hats.

Again, thanks for your thoughts and stay warm.

Elizabeth Berry, Touchpoints Creative

» Login or register now to comment!

Fri, 2012-02-17 09:31 — Elizabeth Berry

Please note: Your first comment as a registered user will be held for moderation up to 24 hours (usually less). For more information about comments on our site, please read our FAQ and terms of use.