What is behind the phenomenon we call social media?

Just a few months later....this is still a relevant post.
.-= Jim Mitchemu00c2u00b4s last blog ..Connectedness =-.

Social Media is a growing trend world wide. Its people getting involved in online news media, able to tell their stories, give opinions, share their experiences, sharing in knowledge for growth and understanding more in themselves as well as others. Its definitely a new way of communication. I am excited about it, glad to be able to see this all taking place. At http://determined2.com Social Value Network site. Interactivity that promotes the successful pursuit of life goals. Able to form groups within the same goal, to share stories,experiences, and help keep each other motivated and focused on completion of goals.

Brad:
You have made me a huge fan of Clay Shirky. The man is brilliant and cogent and persuasive. Thanks for the link. And the culled comments.

Edward

I remember 10, 15 years ago when doomsayers claimed the internet was going to keep us all isolated. There were studies that revealed how spending hours on the internet would alienate people from their family and friends and create a society of mutant indoor dwellers with no social skills. What a picture!

You're so right about the basic human desire that finally has an outlet in social media. People WANT to connect, share, participate, and be heard. Social media doesn't alienate... instead it's a powerful conduit between people who share common passions.

And considering I'm living 2000+ miles away from my home and family, social media (particularly Facebook) has been nothing less than magical in its ability to also keep me connected to the people I care about. Without it I'd feel so disconnected from them. Social media is a GIFT.

@michelletripp

Edward,

Thanks for the post. If you haven't already read this Shirky article about cognitive surplus, I bet you'll enjoy it. Another take on the march to social media.

Here are some excerpts:

The transformation from rural to urban life was so sudden, and so wrenching, that the only thing society could do to manage was to drink itself into a stupor for a generation. The stories from that era are amazing-- there were gin pushcarts working their way through the streets of London.
And it wasn't until society woke up from that collective bender that we actually started to get the institutional structures that we associate with the industrial revolution today. Things like public libraries and museums, increasingly broad education for children, elected leaders--a lot of things we like--didn't happen until having all of those people together stopped seeming like a crisis and started seeming like an asset.

It wasn't until people started thinking of this as a vast civic surplus, one they could design for rather than just dissipate, that we started to get what we think of now as an industrial society.

...

If I had to pick the critical technology for the 20th century, the bit of social lubricant without which the wheels would've come off the whole enterprise, I'd say it was the sitcom. Starting with the Second World War a whole series of things happened--rising GDP per capita, rising educational attainment, rising life expectancy and, critically, a rising number of people who were working five-day work weeks. For the first time, society forced onto an enormous number of its citizens the requirement to manage something they had never had to manage before--free time.

And what did we do with that free time? Well, mostly we spent it watching TV.

...

It's better to do something than to do nothing. Even lolcats, even cute pictures of kittens made even cuter with the addition of cute captions, hold out an invitation to participation. When you see a lolcat, one of the things it says to the viewer is, "If you have some sans-serif fonts on your computer, you can play this game, too." And that's message--I can do that, too--is a big change.

...

Here's something four-year-olds know: A screen that ships without a mouse ships broken. Here's something four-year-olds know: Media that's targeted at you but doesn't include you may not be worth sitting still for. Those are things that make me believe that this is a one-way change. Because four year olds, the people who are soaking most deeply in the current environment, who won't have to go through the trauma that I have to go through of trying to unlearn a childhood spent watching Gilligan's Island, they just assume that media includes consuming, producing and sharing.

From Clay Shirky's article Gin, Television, and Social Surplus

Edward, what a wonderful post. I think you hit the nail on the head with:
"We have, and have always had, a desire to express our opinion, to matter to others, to do business with a human being not a corporation, to be treated with respect, to be part of the conversation. Social media not only enables us, it encourages us."

I do not see a lot of people driven to social media by fear, as Mr. Bourne claims. Instead, I see a lot of generosity, encouragement, and great sharing of ideas... some that I agree with, some that I do not. It's up to each of us to sift through the data to see what is relevant and true for us. But that's always been the case, with everything! This social media thing is ripe for creativity, experimentation, and growth. Some things will work, some won't. What else is new?

Being an optimist does not mean you're out of touch with reality. It means you understand how to mold it.

While I agree that we're sort of returning to a time when the communal chat around the hearth fire brought us closer together, there are also other far more darker reasons driving the lemming-like rush into social media. First of all, the trust we place in what the so-called experts tell us is eroding. Whether that's a result of a constant stream of double-speaking politicians making up new terms to mask their true meaning (enemy combatant) or some other sense that the system that we've grown up trusting is now broken, we've lost our general faith that everything is A-OK.

Fear of an unseen enemy, a crumbling environment, and the failing market has driven many of us into cocoons where we can avoid real face-to-face interaction in our daily lives. Social media enables us to cocoon ourselves further by relying on what like-minded folks think, rather than opening ourselves up to new ideas and contrary thought. Thanks to RSS you can customize your news just for you and largely avoid exposure to anything that may offend your sensibilities. Twitter is the same way. Everyone follows the most followed when they get started, and it's becoming a system where popularity feeds more popularity, whether it's justified or not. Some of the best tweets out there have yet to be read.

Lastly, with a generation coming to the workplace having been told by their parents that the sun rises for them each day (and no one keeps score at soccer games lest we hurt anyone's feelings), there is an element of social media that is feeding our egos at the expense of feeding our souls. Everyone is desperately fighting to be heard above the fray. What Twitter most resembles is less a conversation and more a cacophony of people trying to show how smart they are. Many are lonely people trying to forge a connection with someone, anyone, who will listen.

So, before we all start to sing Kumbaya around the campfire, we need to consider both the good and the bad that social media brings -- the bullying cheerleader moms, the Myspace stalkers, and all. There is great potential for social media to be a force for good, but it could just as easily be used to spread hatred, ignorance, and conformity.

TvMissionary:

To be honest, I hadn't been able to capture it this clearly until today. Had to come up with something for a lecture at Emerson College and suddenly this hit me. This is why social is so big. Not just the possibilities and the platforms, but the fact that it is overcoming years of media that denied our need to express and share.

Edward

Mike:

Well put. You are clear and articulate. As a student it's great you are taking advantage of this. Use it, connect, build your own brand. It will come back to help you out many times over.

Edward

I've struggled where to draw the line between social media's raw narcissism and the base human condition that draws us toward one another. I believe life's richness is often derived from nuance and the pull/push of social media is filled with it. I hadn't thought about technology turning its isolating characteristics on their ear. Very well said.

Wonderful post! One of the best lines about social media that I read (and re-quoted a bunch of times) is actually from its definition in wikipedia...where it states the beauty of social media is that it transforms the monologue into the dialogue.

I think that is exactly what you are saying...that social media enables us to reconnect, re-engage and actively think and participate rather than passively receive.

Let the conversation continue!

Great post, Mr. Boches.

It is undeniably true that social media is redefining how we communicate. It not only allows for social interaction, but also for the unprecedented spread of knowledge among like minded people. The walls between the 'knows' and the 'know-nots' have all but crumbled. As a soon to graduate advertising student, can you imagine how invaluable it is to not only have access to individuals like yourself, but to be able to engage in dialogues? The very idea of that, even a mere 5-10 years ago, was simply beyond consideration.

I view social media not only as a renewal of the communication channels we once had, but a reinvention of the entire concept. It seemed we had something close to this with the introduction of the web, then email, then instant messaging and so on. But the current generation of social media tools are revealing not only the still unrealized power of the web, but the truly inherent desire within people share what they know, help others to grow, and improve themselves in the process.

Again, great post. You really put it in perspective.