Online, does everything have to be bloody intentional?
A couple of days ago I wrote a piece that casually mentioned:
Online interactions are largely expected to be intentional. On purpose. Planned. People assume you did stuff for a reason.Since then I have begun to realise this explains something that has been bugging me for a while now:
Why does much of what people say and do in online social networks sound phoney?
Dorrr... because they are doing it on purpose. They are being 'strategic friends'. Just look at many of the status updates you see posted on Facebook - they rarely tell barefaced truths or share some of the more stark realities of day-to-day lives. People love to share news about the cool things they have done, or the photos of exotic places they have been to, or the fun they had last night, but not how up tight they are feeling today or how crap their period is this month.
Sometimes I yearn to read some of the real things my friends are doing and facing. And therein lies the conundrum of platforms like Facebook. In friendship and human interaction, you just don't do things on purpose (ok, sometimes you do), you do things because you have moments of joy, openess, inspiration, fear, sadness, empathy or compassion.
When I open Facebook I am increasingly struck by the lack of balance that being 'personally strategic' with one another generates.
OK, back to real life I guess.
3 comments:
Hey Tim, good points. I'm not sure I totally agree, though, as you say that a) internet posting *used to be* strategic... i would posit that it still is from a corporate/organisational standpoint, however blogs and social networking sites and the like have really personalised the web. In personalization, much like writing in a journal or to a friend/group of friends, no strategy is really required, chai mai?
That being said, your other point on how people only put the more positive posts, I would disagree also. I have had many friends post updates like, "X is having a sh!t day today" and "Y hates Canadian bureaucracy and is sick with the flu," for example. The last time I put something negative on my FB page I received an onslaught of messages and posts from well-wishers.
My questions about the internet, and the future of it and web2.0 social-y stuff, generally now revolve around credibility and reliability of source information in an era of such intense and accessible personalisation. I read something recently that pointed out that now that *everyone* has a blog, who cares and who reads such *often* purposeless musing and emoting? Additionally the article pointed to a worrying (for me as a professional wordsmith anyways) trend in less and less information being provided as we move further into our "soundbite" global culture. Where are the storytellers going? And why is it that when a story being told lasts longer than a 2-min sound clip people intellectually check out? Concerning.
Last I read from this article, blogs are going the way of the dinosaur and "soundbite" sites like Twitter are going to be the new future.
So you'll not only get to continue to post one-line updates (be they positive or negative), but now you get to do it even sitting on the toilet or supposedly having coffee with a friend (does anyone do this anymore or do we just sit behind our computers and wi-fi'ed celphones?!).
And once again I ask, who cares?
Amber is concerned about the future of dialogue and storytelling.
Some of my status update:
- Roger is very tired...
- Roger has nothing to say.
- Roger is wallowing in Saturday's undemanding chores. What a relief!
- Roger fait de la puree Mousseline !
- Roger supports British jobs for British workers... and let see if they can run this country better than we do!
- Roger is watching the snow falling and howling and swirling...
- Roger is fighting the tyranny of the Internet.
- Roger is listening to some Thai pop... yeah crap but light!
- Roger is fighting knavery!
- Roger is starting to get bored with Fussbook and people who send him email through it rather than his normnal email and gets email to tell him that he has a FB email.
Am i being "intentional"?
hi Tim ..
may i share some,
i think social networking is a new generation of communication channel, same as what telephone did in many years ago.
as its name 'social' networking, it's mostly used for social. and not need 'strategic' for your friends (even you never know them before :P )
however, as telephone be, many people/company use it for business. some of my friends have 2 accounts for each social networking (facebook, myspace, twitter etc.) personal one, and their business one. some use one account for both.
i would say that this is also real life, a new generation that already coming :)
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