The Case for Social

A few weeks ago I was presenting at a speaking engagement as part of my job. Part of my presentation talked about social media. After the event, one of the audience members approached me, and pointed out how much they didn’t like social platforms. As it happened, the amount of how much this person didn’t like social platform was "a lot."

I’m far from being the great advocate of Facebook or Twitter or Instagram, but I understand their place in our society and I get why so many people like them so much. What I began to realize as we talked about this person's not-particularly-veiled dislike for social media is that two things were influencing the dislike. The first was a fundamental predisposition – part of the dislike just came from the sense that disliking social media was what this person felt like they were supposed to do. The second thing influencing the dislike was a fundamental misunderstanding of why these networks exist.

“People get on there, and it’s all just self-serving. It just feels really pointless to me. Like, why should I care about your picture of what you ate for lunch?”

I actually can’t remember the last time someone Tweeted me a picture of their lunch, and yet I hear this particular criticism all the time. The reality is that social media isn’t creating some new vehicle for narcissistic egoism. It is, in fact, quite the opposite. It is replacing a relationship-building tool that has been around in one form or another for centuries.

Because, as it turns out, doing something like sharing what you had for lunch – in case that’s a thing people are doing in droves just ever so slightly outside of my vision – has very little to do with aggrandizing the person sharing the photo and everything to do with the people at whom that shared moment is aimed.

It’s funny in its own way that at least part of my day-to-day life involves me thinking about and even recommending to other people how they should present themselves in online social spaces. In the end, though, much of what happens on social media is either written or construed, in some general form, as content. And content is what I do.

I don’t think of myself as a "social-media evangelist." I honestly wouldn’t really know that’s a thing if others around me didn’t exactly think of themselves as that thing. I’m not sure social media needs evangelizing. It seems to be doing fine on its own. Except, of course, I keep meeting people who are just like this individual I was talking to after my speaking engagement, and while some 15%–20% of the world’s population uses Facebook, it’s clear that many are doing so grudgingly.

I think a lot of people look at that number and just assume that it’s mostly populated with people who love to hear themselves talk, and who think that the world revolves around them. In some cases, that’s probably true, but for the most part I don’t agree. The thing is that a lot of what happens in these online social spaces is exactly the same thing that happens in conversations people have with one another at parties. It’s the same thing that happens when you start chatting with an old friend on the phone. It’s the same thing that happens when you run across someone you know in the hall or on the sidewalk.

We pretend like most of the time we expect ourselves to engage in profound conversations, when in reality friendships and relationships are built from the ground up on the shared little things. Sharing a great place you ate lunch the other day is perfectly acceptable twenty minutes into a conversation with your friend on the phone. How is it somehow a symbol of intellectual bankruptcy and vapidity when you share it online?

The problem is that there are fewer casual conversations by phone, and much more social engagement happening online. Many of these relationship-building connections are happening in this shared online atmosphere, and human connections are moving to that space as well.

That’s not a bad thing.

I have, in this modern age, far more and far more frequent contact with my established friends – as well as people I might have otherwise completely lost touch with – than I would have had at any other time. That’s not directly relatable to social media, mind you, but it is a result of the shared cultural shifts that make social media possible. It’s the same mechanic, I think, that allows my friends to see what game I’m playing on Steam. It’s the same idea as having a friends leaderboard to compete with on many of my Xbox One games. It’s the reason that, at least in the US, more communication happens by text than by phone conversations.

“Imagine,” I said to this event attendee, “you’re on the phone with your oldest friend, and you’re having a casual conversation. If you had a great lunch at this wonderful place, would you share that with that person? Probably so, and you’re not doing it because you’re self obsessed. You’re doing it because you want to share with others. You want to build connections. You want to have that person feel like they're part of your experiences. And as it turns out, that’s not a selfish act at all. It is in fact far more about the receiver of the information than it really is about you.”

It was a nice conversation, actually. It felt like a moment where I helped someone look at the digital world in a slightly different way, and it reminded of the shifts in preconceptions I had to overcome myself.

It’s interesting, because here I am writing this article about me, but I’m not doing it because I want to just hear what I have to say. I write it because of you.

Yes. You.

Comments

Yep, the most visible social media users, the oversharers, are the ones that give the rest a bad name. Although who's to say they wouldn't behave the same way without social media?

I'm not on any social media anymore. That's a conscious decision, because I don't feel like it serves me any purpose in connecting with the people I want to connect with. Someone actually gave me credit for this decision, considering social media "toxic", but I didn't exactly press for specifics.

I joined Facebook in 2006, to keep in touch with the people I met during freshman orientation at college. We barely said anything to each other over it. I friended all of my dorm mates, and some people from high school and earlier. My best friend from middle school friended me, we ended up talking on the phone for at least an hour and met up over Spring Break when I was back in town. The downside: I felt so uncomfortable being so "open" with so many people, and seeing how open all of them were. The sheer amount of details being shared overwhelmed me. 2006 was well before there were any concerns about Facebook's privacy policy, let alone opening yourself to social engineering or the like by disclosing so much personal information like birthdays, class schedules, etc., although I did get quite a few AIM messages out of the blue from classmates needing homework help. I actually felt a bit of resentment at seeing Facebook friends "in a relationship", particularly girls I may have been crushing on. I knew I was predisposed to Facebook stalking, and I did everything in my power to suppress the urges. Then they found new and exciting ways to bring the stalking to me: they introduced the Mini-Feed! They introduced apps! I kept getting group invites from the heavy users on my friends list, which didn't feel personal at all because I knew they were Facebook zombies spamming their friends list. I would consciously hide my birthday when it drew near, because a) I hated my birthday, and the early college years did nothing to help that feeling, and b) I didn't want a bunch of Facebook zombies, who don't talk to me at all otherwise, suddenly flooding my wall with "HAPPY B-DAY!!!!!!!!!!" My usage dwindled over the next two years in response to the rising tide of oversharing and privacy invasion, and I finally deactivated the account in 2008, just before my mom joined. As soon as I realized you could delete the account, not just deactivate, I jumped on it.

Funny thing is, since leaving grad school, for the first time, I actually want to stay in touch with people. I text a few people, and send emails to others, but at the back of my mind I know that Facebook would make things so much easier, especially since we're all so busy that sometimes it's hard to carve out time to write an email. But I can't bring myself to go back. It's just too much for me. I don't need or want to know all of what my "friends" are sharing, even if it's not necessarily with me exclusively, it feels that way. I think Facebook has changed how we think of "friends", which might contribute to the sense that 90% of what's said on Facebook is empty and pointless.

And yes, just like the OP, I'm not writing this to hear myself talk (even though my long-windedness would suggest otherwise), but because I want to share my experiences and opinions with the community at large. I will say this, disowning social media has definitely made me feel like less of a millennial, if the trends around me are any indication. I'm just trying to be my own person, for whatever it's worth.

Cool article. Got me to rethink about social media even though I'm not a grouch about it. Definitely more of a begrudgingly user. Now perhaps a bit less so.

I've moved around the country a fair bit, so Facebook let's me keep in touch with most people on a weekly or so basis. That's really cool. Sure, a lot of the people I'm FB friends with are acquaintances at this point, but that's probably just natural. Does anyone actually have 400 active friendships? Probably not.

Social media is a tool. Or a toy. It all depends on how you wield it.

IMAGE(http://assets.amuniversal.com/3b2686c0c9c40132db02005056a9545d)

I like what I do with social media... I kind of hate social media (twitter especially), but only because of how people misuse it, and I am probably too private a person to really appreciate everything about it.

Good article, I like almost everything you're saying in it, and I think it's best to embrace the future (or present, as the case may be). I like to keep in touch with people I care deeply about who also happen to live far from me.

Sean, I think the right term for how you defend social media is not evangelist, but perhaps apologist.

Something tells me this article was mostly about Facebook and not Twitter. Twitter is not a place to engage with friends, it's a place to create enemies.

No, I actually use Twitter far more than Facebook. I have that private-person syndrome thing I think some of you are talking about and I find that I feel less on display on Twitter for a variety of reasons.

One thing I found after the initial burst of friending/following was the cathartic joy of being able to unfriend. Someone is racist? Easy unfriend. Someone decided that a random Facebook post is the hill they'll plant their flag on? Easy unfriend. It's so much calmer now that I don't feel required to maintain unwelcome attachments.

Pictures of their lunch? I think this person is confusing Twitter with Instagram. /troll

For me Twitter is all about who I follow. I don't have that much that's interesting to say, but I follow interesting people. Journalists, writers, comedians and actors are the bulk of my timeline, and they are interesting ones.

Boring people get unfollowed, people who expound harmful opinions get unfollowed, people who want to find a 'middle ground' with gamergorp get unfollowed.

Facebook is more about the transmission for me. Mostly sharing baby pictures.

Yes, I'm one of those, and people who don't like it can mute or unfollow me.

Most of the time when I see people criticise social media they just seem to completely misunderstand what it's for and how to use it, and lack the patience to figure it out. When I joined Twitter is was mostly GWJers I followed, but to be honest that was boring, so over the years I've expanded, cut and curated the list of my follows so that my timeline is an endless stream of fascination I couldn't possibly keep up with.

I generally keep my FB friends to actual friends and family who I communicate with occasionally at the very least. Someone I haven't spoken to in 2 years, cut.

Tanglebones wrote:

One thing I found after the initial burst of friending/following was the cathartic joy of being able to unfriend. Someone is racist? Easy unfriend. Someone decided that a random Facebook post is the hill they'll plant their flag on? Easy unfriend. It's so much calmer now that I don't feel required to maintain unwelcome attachments.

The mute button is one of my favourite things on Facebook. I like to maintain some of those tenuous connections, but I don't need to know what my religious right winger aunt thinks about current events.

Thanks for sharing this. I just try to approach social media with sincerity instead of artifice, and a genuine curiosity about (and consideration for) the people I care about; and it works out fine for me.

I'm confused ... is Sean now saying "Get on my lawn"?

Felix Threepaper wrote:

I'm confused ... is Sean now saying "Get on my lawn"?

I think he's saying that it's perfectly okay if you want to be on like the edge of his lawn, as long as you are okay chatting with him about his fertilizer and lime schedules.

I don't have a problem with social media, but I do have a problem with Facebook. The extent to which they are data mining and claiming ownership of peoples' personal content and invading every other site on the internet appalls and frightens me. How many sites have "sign in with Facebook" buttons now?

The company has gone so far as to subsidize data deals in third world countries to the extent that for millions of people, Facebook *is* the internet.

I don't trust any organization with that kind of ambition.

Ah, social media.

(Yeah yeah, I'm late to the conversation. Sorry about that.)

I am by nature a private person. I have a Twitter account, but its default stance of everything-is-public is deeply unsettling to me. That, and the completely frustrating limitations of 140 characters, makes me feel like it's a completely useless exercise. There are other people who find incredible value in Twitter. I don't.

Facebook is an advertising company, like Google is. I think what bothers me the most about Facebook isn't that they're selling their users' attention to advertisers, it's that they seem hell-bent on invading whatever shreds of privacy a user might have tried to keep. Making it hard to do non-public posts (until competing social networks showed it ought to be easy). Making it hard to log out and not be tracked (latest EU warnings to Facebook). Giving apps access to so much data under the hood (until they got busted and had to lock it down). I have a Facebook account, for that one friend who won't leave it, and for software integration testing. I only log in to it in a privacy-enhanced browser tab, because they're suck jerks about tracking me.

But... that one guy. An old friend from high school, who's been hard to stay in touch with because of, well, life. I value that friendship more than the inconvenience of a private browser tab. I see a lot of garbage on social networks, and a lot of stuff that could have been done in person (and perhaps should have been). There's research that suggests people exert the same amount of effort maintaining relationships via social networks as they do in person but get less satisfaction overal out of it. This squares with my personal experience using them. I can choose how I spend time being social: in person, or online. In person is, IMO, much better; it's just not an option for people who live a couple of thousand miles away.

I was just thinking about this article this morning. Another benefit to me of social media, especially Twitter, is I've learned to much about social inequality. I've had my mind and life enriched in a way that would never have happened without it.

For me "Social Media" is a godsend. I spent most of my life wandering, moving from place to place. I did not settle down until I was 33 (and even then it was supposed to be only for a year or two). I've met a lot of people from the places I've lived, but I'm also the worst at e-mailing people.

Facebook has allowed me to connect with most of these people, and for whatever reason I find it easier to send Facebook messages than e-mail.

Where it gets a bad reputation is that it seems so "easy". On the app now you don't even have to type "Happy Birthday", you can do it at a press of a button. This has caused problems because that generic "Happy Birthday" is expected but meaningless. I try to put some thought into my communications, instead of the generic "Happy Birthday" I try to think of something witty (or post a picture of a horrible cake, etc.). I have gotten messages from people that they appreciate the extra thought (even if it is a minute) that I put in my message.

Flintheart Glomgold wrote:

For me "Social Media" is a godsend. I spent most of my life wandering, moving from place to place. I did not settle down until I was 33 (and even then it was supposed to be only for a year or two). I've met a lot of people from the places I've lived, but I'm also the worst at e-mailing people.

Facebook has allowed me to connect with most of these people, and for whatever reason I find it easier to send Facebook messages than e-mail.

Where it gets a bad reputation is that it seems so "easy". On the app now you don't even have to type "Happy Birthday", you can do it at a press of a button. This has caused problems because that generic "Happy Birthday" is expected but meaningless. I try to put some thought into my communications, instead of the generic "Happy Birthday" I try to think of something witty (or post a picture of a horrible cake, etc.). I have gotten messages from people that they appreciate the extra thought (even if it is a minute) that I put in my message.

Oh my god. Are you me?

BadKen wrote:

I don't trust any organization with that kind of ambition.

Have you read much Philip K. Dick?

Flintheart Glomgold wrote:

For me "Social Media" is a godsend. I spent most of my life wandering, moving from place to place. I did not settle down until I was 33 (and even then it was supposed to be only for a year or two). I've met a lot of people from the places I've lived, but I'm also the worst at e-mailing people.

Facebook has allowed me to connect with most of these people, and for whatever reason I find it easier to send Facebook messages than e-mail.

Where it gets a bad reputation is that it seems so "easy". On the app now you don't even have to type "Happy Birthday", you can do it at a press of a button. This has caused problems because that generic "Happy Birthday" is expected but meaningless. I try to put some thought into my communications, instead of the generic "Happy Birthday" I try to think of something witty (or post a picture of a horrible cake, etc.). I have gotten messages from people that they appreciate the extra thought (even if it is a minute) that I put in my message.

I now desire a bot that will Google "happy birthday [firstName]" and post the first SFW image to people's timelines on their birthday.