As I am sure you are aware (and couldn’t avoid even if you
wanted to), there has been a huge debate in the sociology/social media worlds
about the effects of social media technology on our interpersonal interactions
and social lives.
On one hand, social media allow you to connect to, keep
track of, and bond more with a much great diversity of people despite physical
distances. We can now move across the
world and still keep in touch with family, friends, business contacts, and our
favorite sports teams.
On the other hand, we can be a lot more shallow in a Tweet
or Facebook post than we can in a face-to-face conversation. If you take the time to go to someone’s house
or meet them for a beer at the local dive, you are going to say more than 140
characters.
Some of my favorites:
I am not going to go into either of these sides because
there is plenty of material already and a lot of it is really insightful. No, instead I am going to warn about the
hazard of trying to split the difference and do them both in parallel. I went out with four friends a few days
ago. We went out together because we are
friends. We enjoy each other’s
company. We have mutual interests. We have lots to talk about. At least that is what I thought. But for 90% of the evening, all four of their
heads were buried in their phones – checking email, Facebook, Twitter, et
al. I would have taken it as a personal
insult to be so totally ignored except that they were ignoring each other as
well (yes, I looked over their shoulders to make sure they weren’t all texting
each other J).
It is a good demonstration of the Power of Habit,
the Fogg Behavior Model and Hooked. When the
signal of a new tweet, email, text, or post comes in, the dopamine rush
automatically elicits its associated response – look to see who it is. And it is too tantalizing not to check real
quick what it is about. It will only
take a second, that isn’t too rude to my friends. And just one more second to punch out a quick
response or to bookmark it for later.
Maybe with just a few additions to remember it. And just one more little think on top. 15 seconds tops. And then 15 seconds later, the next tweet,
email, post, or text comes in and the activity cycle happens all over again.
But I really wanted to hang out with my friends. I didn't feel like I got much of that.
