Last weekend The New York Times Magazine put out an article called "Brave New World of Digital Intimacy," where the author, Clive Thompson, describes the present social media landscape as a state of "ambient awareness" -- one through which we gain a sense of closeness to our comrades via incessant online updates.
Each little update — each individual bit of social information — is insignificant on its own, even supremely mundane. But taken together, over time, the little snippets coalesce into a surprisingly sophisticated portrait of your friends' and family members' lives, like thousands of dots making a pointillist painting.
Sounds like fun. But, for people like me, this just doesn't apply.
My Web 2.0 life is, on the whole, rather anti-social. In fact, the more the Web forces us to socialize, the less liked and the more alone I've begun to feel. (Please commence your collective "Awww...")
"Facebook" is a term my friends and I can agree exists and perhaps even serves some sort of purpose. Facebook was born when we were in college looking for something, anything as a distraction. The situation was so dire that, one day, some geek at Harvard made sitting at your computer all day seem like a cool thing to do -- and strangely enough we followed along. Huh. What are the odds?
But outside of Facebook, for me, the landscape has proven unfamiliar and cold. And I often feel like an awkward tourist: one who clearly has no business being somewhere but to investigate the culture of strangers from afar. And sport a fanny pack.
My friends and family don't Tweet. They don't do Pownce, and they certainly don't Digg. They've never heard of Imeem and the mere mention of "data portability" sets their eyes a-glaze. "Oh. That sounds heavy," I can hear them thinking.
For the most part, the only people I "socialize" with or "Follow" on social media sites are those I've encountered as a result of my writing about technology: those who read my blogs, those I've met at tradeshows, faithful sources, fateful stalkers, etc.
I understand the business value of Twitter. I've gained an extra reader or two as a result, and access to some information relevant to my job. But, as far as real sociability is concerned, being on Twitter, for me, is reminiscent of sitting alone at the end of a lunch table in grade school, picking at some sad sandwich while the kids at the other end happily make after-school plans and stuff Tater Tots in each others' mouths. I have no "real" friends following my Tweets. In fact, if I even said "Tweet" to one of my friends in any serious context, I'd probably get a response amounting to some smiles, some nods, and a lovely strait jacket for my next birthday.
And I can't imagine that I'm alone here. Even tech enthusiasts such as Twitter's Alex Payne and Socializr's Jonathan Abrams have affirmed that most people outside of the Valley or Alley not absorbed in the tech industry just don't pay attention to this stuff. So, for those of us without a fistful of tech-lovin' friends, where's the real social value?
Perhaps I'm just hanging around the wrong crowds. These people I call friends have never even heard of half of the buzzwords you all so smartly ranked as the Top Ten -- yet my social media Friends could list 20 more.
But for what it's worth, I like my offline friends and family, and I'm not ready to trash them for the sake of having a familiar face to Follow.
So when my 19-year-old brother (who fits into that alleged "prime demographic") asks me what "a Twitter" is, for now I just sigh and mutter something like "microblog... never mind."
I'd consider posting a Tweet about it, but for whom?
So you would say that the IE reader is the typical human being? just because it doesn't go into technical details (as, lets say, an IEEE article) doesn't mean everyone is interested.
Obviously not many people know what Twitter is (globally, outside of "Sillicon Alley") and much less people actually use it, but if ti continues to operate, more and more people will start understanding it's purpose and some might actually join.
Well, Frankly speaking I felt the same way before I started actively reading through post on Internet Evolution for multiple reasons. Though we portray the need of the message board seemed more technical know-how and discuss market trends, its really not the case. For instance, Good Offense: Still the Best Cyber-Defense, IT Ageism in Action, Pondering 9/11 in a Web 2.0 World and My Anti-Social Web 2.0 Life are not technical blogs. They are more about how technology and its trends, effects to more human level. This basic difference between other sites made me stick to this site for more readings, responses and views. I think this is a social hangout for a techie whoz social group is not necessary the same in real world.
I agree with you, in the sense that most of my friends are oblivious to twitter, virtual worlds and digging. The truth is that we can’t expect everyone to adopt every single technology from the start. Think what would had happened if Bill Gates thought that his friends weren’t into personal computers and stopped. Consumer behavior experts have some numbers about what percent of people take on new technologies.
The categorization they’ve created is: Innovators (2.5%), Early Adopters (13.5%), Early Majority (34%), Late Majority (34%) and Laggards (16%). And we also must realize that innovation is relative to the rest of the social system the individual claiming that has it (innovation) lives in.
In that sense, we can’t expect to have all our friends talk the “innovators” talk and walk the “creators” walk, they’ll catch up, eventually.
We make use of technologies in our work and in our everyday life so much we become dependent of them. Thesedays, people rely on mobile devices and the Internet for their essential business communications/transactions just to stay competitive. They couldn't imagine life without the Internet or cellphone. But it often starts off as a "nice-to-have" technology until thousands of replays of commercials and ads make it a "must-have", e.g. iPods, iPhones and Amazon kindles, etc.. you think these are nice to have? Before we know it, they will be the things we can't go on our daily life without or else we just can't compete out there.
Ike sounds terrible. I'm sure microblog can come in handy sometimes for quick exchanges and all. I don't hate microblogs (in fact, i'm looking for 'nanoblog' if it ever exists at all) and I agree that it extends the social feature of Web 2.0 - but hopefully we won't become dependent on microblogs anytime soon.
By the way, do you like the new look of Facebook? I'm still disoriented after looking around the new layout.
Do we really need mobile phones and devices? No, it adds convenience..and sometimes the opposite.
When I was growing up, having a teen phone line was pretty much the end of communication perks.
Do we really need blogs, wikis, web applications, voip..the internet?
Well we do today, but I recall a time when PCs had little use for the consumer..other than bragging rights.
Viboons -
Join my network on facebook and you'll see plenty of microblog and commenting exchanges. Ex: Wonder if my house is blown away in Ike. Comments: Moomaw stayed in Houston..ask him what it's like. Comment2: I decided to get out of town and wait it out in Killeen.
I'm loving microblogs. I see how it is beneficial as well as perpetuating social web further..or adding more social to web2.0
"But for what it's worth, I like my offline friends and family, and I'm not ready to trash them for the sake of having a familiar face to Follow".
Your offline friends and family are the most precious things you could have in life and they don't need to be at the same technogical level or deeply immerge in "your work unviverse" to remain your friends or family. In reality not all these new communication technologies really matter. And we cannot expect everyone around us to adopt them if they don't see the need.
Hey Jwallace. You're right the comment MADE ME READ - it worked!! And they are good comments.
First, 99% of Facebook apps are always a good example of things we don't need. Some apps are entertaining but unnecessary nonetheless, as opposed to social networing and comm tools. Also, I don't believe in microblogging that much even though I think it's a creative idea. I don't post tweets and neither do a whole host of people out there (including Nicole's friends), so I dare say people don't find microblogging that necessary.
Second, although there's some similarity between fashion and tech, the fashion design world is a different domain and so it's tricky to try to compare the two. For people who read fashion magazines regularly, for example, are likely to know what's the latest trends in fashion but for those who couldn't care less about fashion would not keep up. That's the main similarity I think, but here's a difference: in the fashion domain, things go much slower and if you can't keep up, you can still buy what you like to wear, but in the tech world where things advance rapidly, you can't just shop your way out because when you don't keep up, it's not easy to know the things you can do with new techs or their features, etc. Some people don't even know how to use email let alone getting them to tweet or post a video response on youtube... they can't keep up and the latest don't necessarily go to them.
Social web2.0 offers alot of unnecessary things? WOULD YOU CARE TO ITEMIZE?
The people shouldn't have to keep up with the latest, it goes to them if it's to 'live'. Take designer purses for example. How many women actually know the latest trends, what's in this season, what came out last season, what designer collection etc. You have early purse adapters, then you have the coach outlets. Some people don't care about the latest, and will go with the 'timeless' yet high quality piece, others will go for the cutting edge. Okay, this really didn't explain anything, but..MADE YOU READ Viboons! please do itemize those non-necessary social web things at your earliest convenience.
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In another step toward becoming socially acceptable, Google today unveiled "Google Buzz" -- a method for social sharing from inside Gmail. Naturally, some ever-creative types are already dubbing this release as a "Twitter-killer" and a "Facebook-killer." Because, we just can't get enough of that kind of language.
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