The ghost of Facebook past: Social media doesn’t make us more connected
Posted: December 29th, 2008 | Author: Ron Bronson | Filed under: entrepreneurship, Life, music, Social Media, Sports | Tags: facebook, friends | 5 Comments »You are currently browsing comments. If you would like to return to the full story, you can read the full entry here: “The ghost of Facebook past: Social media doesn’t make us more connected”.
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Good insight, as always. I agree that it can be difficult to decide whether it matters that someone is asking to connect with you, and you barely knew/know them. And yet, it is not that much work to accept their request and at the same time (in the case of Facebook) assign them to the “Limited Profile” group. When their activity starts showing up in the newsfeed, simply mouse over the item, and from the Options… menu select “Less about [name].” If nothing changes, in a couple of months you can cut them loose and nobody’s interests will be harmed.
Yes, it’s a bit of work to keep these things straight, but if a site offers you some value (there are, after all, mostly REAL friends connected to you, right?) it’s worth the investment to calibrate the settings and craft your network so it’s shaped to help you accomplish whatever it is you want it to do. Like you said, after all, it all depends on why you’re using the service in the first place.
I more or less agree with you — attention is scarce and needs to be preserved, and it can be easy to be fatigued by these various networks. My only real point of contention is that you’re talking about social _networking_, not social _media_ (where media — like digital media — consists of music, movies, tv shows, photos, etc., of which Facebook is not a part).
“Social media” is connecting people socially around their interests in music, movies, and the like. Keeping track of old friends is networking, which is quite different.
[shameless self-promotion]
Here’s another take on how different social networks attract different types of users: the habits of social network addicts.
[/shameless self-promotion]
The crux of the study linked to there is this:
MySpace addicts are somewhat vain – focusing heavily on establishing and fine tuning their online personas by customization of their personal profiles
Facebook addicts focus more on engagement – interacting with applications, music and people both on and off the platform
Twitter addicts are most interested in fostering communication and exploration – sites that allow a user to understand what their contacts are doing, provide a platform for content discovery and encourage users to actively participate are the most likely places to find hardcore twitterers
Not sure what it says about you if you’re addicted to all three social networks.
Bah. You won’t let me shamelessly hyperlink in your comments form. Very well then. Here you go:
http://highered.prblogs.org/2008/03/20/the-habits-of-social-network-addicts/
Ryan, you are right. The two terms have been flipped so much that sometimes I make the sin of integrating them, but it’s a mistake to be sure.
As for Andrew and your post, thanks for letting me know I’m months behind the curve.
In all seriousness, though..thanks for that. It was a good breakdown and synopsis of things for sure.
And Andy is right. People need to take the time to use the protections and the tools within social software aimed at making it easier to manage. Friend groups on facebook, for instance, have been a godsend for me in terms of being able to organize things better.