Trust Bridges and House Parties

Tools come, but they aren't necessarily used in the way they were intended. Users invent uses. Useful uses spread. The main social media tools I use are Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, my blog and Instagram (kind of). Each of them serve slightly different purposes. I always only connected with people I actually know in person on Facebook and LinkedIn. LinkedIn for colleagues and clients. Facebook for everybody else. With a big overlap.

I am a fairly recent convert to Twitter even though I have been on it since 2009. I only started understanding how I could use it in a way I enjoyed in 2014. Now I love it. The key difference from Facebook is that I can follow people I don't know. I can meet people I don't know. I consider following someone on Twitter analogous to putting my hand out to meet them, and saying 'Hi, my name is Trev. You look interesting'. It is much easier to do that in a virtual world than in the real world. Unless you are at a house party, a speed dating event or something specifically designed to meet people, just introducing yourself takes a lot of guts.

Unless you have the trust bridge of a mutual friend introducing you, there is always the question of what your motive is. With Twitter, I can look at someone's intro, a few of their tweets, and I normally discover them via people I already find interesting. The great thing about the 'virtual hand shake' introduction is it doesn't matter all that much if they don't return the handshake. There isn't the punch to the stomach of a real world equivalent to being 'left hanging'.

The problem is, a lot of people don't get Twitter. Many who are on it use it as a Broadcast mechanism for their ideas, rather than as a conversation. The 'follow' idea isn't useful. It makes it sound like connecting in that way is somehow elevating the person. Maybe the word will change one day, but it is a wonderful place to connect to new people with new ideas. It is an unfiltered filter of conversation. You can consciously craft a way to burst your bubble where all you hear and experience is with people you know. I have a bunch of lists I use to actively make sure I am looking at what people who are not 'like me' are saying.

More people get Facebook. It started with photos of friends and connecting to people we already knew. I definitely get the feeling it is evolving into more interesting conversations. What I would like to see is whether it can start breaking down bubbles in the way that Twitter can. The challenge with Twitter is that a lot of interesting people stop looking at who is sticking out their hand. They stop following people back. So new people join Twitter and it ends up being an echo chamber. It seems like they are just sending an 'sms to the world' with no one seeing it. Winking in the dark.

It would be great if Facebook became more like house parties. If there were more introductions. If you are happy for me to introduce you to people, please let me know. I am going to start actively making more introductions. If you know people who you think I should meet, please introduce me.  We aren't going to burst our bubbles by accident. We need to bump them into each other consciously so that they grow.

We are more interesting together.

We need to Burst our Bubbles

Noise Broadcast or Signal Conversation

As we learn to use social media, and as the tools improve, we can start to re-incorporate some of the social skills we use offline but that couldn't be applied. I have always considered myself as having a fairly wide 'circle of trust' and have not been that afraid of saying things as I believe them to be. In truth however, I impose a large whack of self-censorship. Which is good.

I am definitely more blunt in my blog, partly because people choose to read it, so they can choose not to. Still, I don't have the same level of openness in my blog as I have with close friends. 

I have often chatted to my 'blogging buddy' +Stuart Torr about starting a private blog. This would be one where we could invite people and thus be more open in what we say. It felt like a lot of hard work and having previously attempted one in a work environment, it was quite cumbersome.

Facebook doesn't allow you the option of joining specific conversations (yet). Although in theory people can selectively choose who reads status updates, they are generally broadcast to all your contacts. This turns us into something similar to the original TV. One channel. On or off. Broadcasting noise.

This means that you get all a friends news without the context of offline conversations. If I know you, I know the areas of mutual interest and normally I know the areas I should avoid (or discover them along the way). Facebook currently just does broadcasts. I can't choose to hear all of a friends news - but not when they starting going on about [], or see all their photos, but not photos including []. Sensitivity, tact, context, permission etc. go out the window. 

Google+ is taking off, and has a 'community' option which is a little like Whatsapp where you can start a conversation with specific people. This is like new TV channels being opened up. Slowly but surely we can get the choice of which conversations to join again.

Exciting times.

Friendship or Stalking?

I sometimes think that peoples aversion to Facebook, Blogging and other forms of social networking is similar to how people held out against adopting cellphones.

Most of the concerns sited are along the lines of an invasion of privacy. To an extent that is true. In the same way as someone pre-social networking who didn't have any friends also might have said having any friends at all invades privacy. So, taken to an extreme, a hermit would have complete privacy.

But, I do see the concern that with physical friendships you are able to `manage' them more easily. You only really maintain friendships with a handful of people, and the others you catch up with occasionally. Family doesn't even necessarily fit into the category of people you regularly keep up with.

For some people that is desirable. They can't see why on earth they would possibly want to know more about what is going on in their friends lives than they currently do. And they think it is a bit stalkerish.

This may be true.

However, there is something great about seeing a friend you haven't seen in ages and they have been reading your blog, and seeing your photos on Facebook.

Immediately, they bring up something that you have a mutual interest in (which you might not have known you shared) and conversation flows. Not that it wouldn't have flowed without it, but I think it is easier to find common ground faster.

The price is that maybe it is harder to lose contact with people you want to lose contact with. Harder to redefine yourself and your circle of friends? Harder to compartmentalize your interactions with people?

I don't deny that the pre-networking era had its benefits. But like cell phones, I suspect everyone will be `on' in a few years time.

And, on the balance... I think we will be better off because of it.

Facebook etiquette

How many of you read the Facebook status updates?

I basically add anyone I know rather than friends to facebook since my profile doesn't really give away anything of any dramatic value other than how to contact me should someone so desire, which I find in the main are the people I would like to contact. The others don't really go to the effort.

The thing I find interesting though is the way people splurge. I can't really think of a better word, but some people choose to voice their deepest inner most secrets on facebook. Ok, that is a bit of an exageration. But... they will tell you their moods, who they are upset with, and who they are hitting on!

Some people even sabotage other peoples sites once they know their passwords and then pretend to be that person.

I find in the main that you can ignore this stuff, and use facebook in the way you want to use it. You don't have to use it in any other way than you want to.

But what is interesting is the insight into certain peoples personalities, the prejudices that come out, and the flow of information. When do people choose to update relationship statuses... things like people putting their relationship status as `it's complicated'!, hmmmmm

I believe that with all this technology around, it is going to force us to be more honest, but I also believe we have a long way to go in terms of what you actually put out there and what you don't.

The thing that gets me though is that these type of stories spread, and technophobes decide they want to have nothing to do with it. They don't want people contacting them so they stay off facebook, they don't want people knowing their details so they stay off... etc.

Social networking is really powerful in terms of staying in contact... but I am scared the boils will stop people who we would like to interact with from joining.

I think the important thing is that these mediums don't really change what you put out there, it is just easier to do it if you choose to.