Social Networking

Social Networking is certainly a big deal in the tech community, and it must be a big deal in the Internet community given Facebook's 300 million+ active users plus the innumerable other Social Networking sites, but somehow it has never clicked for me. I have a few blogs here and there which I update occasionally, but somehow it has never sucked me in.

There is definitely something important about the idea of Social Networking: humans are social animals and communication is an important part of our socialization. In fact our communities are defined by who we communicate with- from the detailed discussions with partners and work colleagues to the friendly nod to the-guy-at-the-bus-stop who's name you don't know but you see every day (except for rainy days when his wife drops him off at the train, which you saw one day when you missed the bus and had to walk to the train station).

And therein lies the rub: we are expert social animals and our everyday social communication is nuanced and subtle. We naturally track very subtle interactions with a range of different people (did the shopkeeper hear me discussing my tinea with my friend? oh yes, she made a comment about socks to the next person- wait no that was in response to a direct question about where they were- she still might have heard about my tinea) and we naturally present ourselves differently to different people in different contexts (yeah, this is a company offsite and I'm with the guys so we'll discuss getting drunk, but 24 hours later at work we won't have that discussion, except if we...).

None of that nuance exists in the online Social Network: we are rarely aware of who has read what, we don't present ourselves differently at different times (everything I've ever posted is available at any given time) and there is none of the everyday grouping of people which we do naturally and easily in the real world.

Social Networking as it stands today groups communication into: one on one private communication or public communication to everyone. And the tools to create more subtle groups (all the people within ear shot of my desk at work, the people I trust not to blab this sort of thing) are generally non-existent or far too much of a pain to manage. So at the moment social networking is basically a promiscuous process: hey everyone! here's everything about me!

That is effectively what it means to be famous. So if you want to be famous, Social Networking is currently an effective medium.

I think there are lots of people who don't want to be famous. Or at least there are lots of people who like more control over who knows what about them.

The alternative online is hoping for obscurity. Just a few friends or family read your blog/tweets/facebook and hopefully nothing happens to change that.

Its a shame that better options don't exist because increasingly the people you communicate with are distant and electronically connected. And those everyday electronically connected people don't have some of the everyday real world modes of communication: John looks hungover- best not to ask him any questions to day, Jane is spending a lot of time talking to Peter- I wonder if something is going on?

That's why tweets and status updates and blog posts are important and simultaneously look like junk. They are day to day pings of communication.

Hey! The-guy-at-the-bus-stop got dropped off by a different woman! I wonder what's going on there?