This new millennium is confusing to a lot of people. Moore’s law tells us that computing power will double every two years, but this doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of the social changes that that computer power drives. Social media is a prime example. With most of the US wired to some degree and hundreds of millions of people participating on Facebook alone, we’re more than a little lost in the woods with what to do with these new tools. Across the board, we are largely doing it wrong.
1) Facebook is not a good way to make new friends.
Some might argue that it is. Some might argue that they have successfully made friends through Facebook, but I don’t buy it. I, too, have added a friend of a friend to my own feed, but it’s because I like what they have to say, not because I think we should be friends. The problem is that you cannot get to know someone online.
We know that 93% of communication is non-verbal. Ninety-three. Only 7% of our face-to-face communication comes from our choice of words. The rest of it is a combination of body language and tone of voice. Both of those things are lost online. Immediately, online, we are at a severe disadvantage, especially since the average American only knows 15,000-30,000 words. (Uncited as I could not find any good sources for these numbers.) No matter how many words you know, if you’re only typing to someone, they are only receiving 7% of what you’re trying to convey.
Even worse, though, is that we aren’t always aware of this lack of tone and physical cues. When we type, even if we bold, italicize, capitalize or otherwise try to highlight the words that we’re trying to emphasize, people might miss it, even if it’s perfectly clear to us. We will even “hear” tone in what we’re writing or what we’re reading, and we forget that the person on the other end may be “hearing” something different.
You can’t know someone’s level of sarcasm or their honest reaction to whatever it is you’re saying. As much as you might like that person who you “met” because you comment on the same types of posts or because you (appear to) share a world view, until you have an opportunity to take things to a different level, you will only ever know less than 10% of them. It is much easier to like people online than it is to translate it to the physical world.
a) Nor is it a good way to start a romantic relationship.
Everything above still applies, but tenfold. You cannot assess someone’s suitability as a partner online. We all put our best face forward. Even in real-time IM conversations, we have the ability to edit and self-censor. We can make ourselves look better online than we ever could in person. Those flattering pictures? Yes, they might be genuine, but people specifically choose to post the photos that make them look best. In this age of digital cameras, you can take a hundred pictures and keep only one. We can also tailor our responses to the person we’re talking to.
That 7% of what comes through isn’t enough for a strong foundation for a friendship, let alone a foundation for a meaningful relationship, but it feels like it is. Because of the seeming anonymity, we reveal our “secrets” early in the conversation and things feel intimate much more rapidly. When that first face-to-face meeting occurs, we already feel like we know the other person and we feel much further along in the getting-to-know-you process than we actually are. It leads to short, drama-laden pseudo-relationships and more loneliness.
2) You don’t have as many friends as your friend count.
Recently, this article went around. It claims that humans are only capable of 150 meaningful relationships. Prior to Facebook’s mainstream popularity, that number was thought to be even lower, at least in terms of close friends. The “top 10″ phone plans work because most people have fewer than 10 people that they call on a regular basis and, as time goes on, Americans find that they have fewer confidantes than ever before. Some claim that this is by choice, but further studies show an epidemic of loneliness and isolation in our society. While our number of “friends” as defined by the internet increase, our number of actual friends, as defined by actions, compassion and availability, decreases.
Our friends, without quotation marks, are the ones who will drop everything and come to the hospital. They’re the ones who will comfort you when you cry. They’re the ones who actually want to know “How are you?” when they ask. They know your story and your history. They know what’s going on in your life, even when it’s not so pretty. And you feel the same way about them.
The problem is that social media has co-opted the word “friend” to mean contacts and acquaintances and our brains aren’t processing this new meaning. Few, if any, of the people I went to high school with are people I consider friends in my life, but Facebook classifies them as such. Anyone I’ve added to my Facebook page is, by default, my friend, but its their actual role in my life that legitimizes that definition, or not.
3) Your privacy settings do not make you safe and may cost you friends.
I’m one of those people who only adds people I know to Facebook, but sometimes I don’t add people I know. Not because of some slight, but because I’m not entirely sure who they are. I get periodic friend requests. Mostly they’re names I recognize with pictures of people I know, but sometimes it’s a name that is sort of familiar, but I can’t place it; the picture is of nature or a dog or maybe a baby and the profile is locked down so that all I can see is the gender of the person making the request (which, depending on the first name, I probably already figured out). That’s it. That person gets rejected because I have no way of knowing who it is. Maybe someone with an uncommon first name would be easier to figure out, but a generic name like “Susan” or “David”, where there are millions of them and probably several in my life? Forget it. If I can’t figure out who you are by visiting your profile page, I’m not adding you to my page.
So why do people do this? Every week there’s a new “security threat” that gets spammed across Facebook. Be careful of the boogie man of the week! The reality is that we should pick and choose what we want and need to be private. Very few people actually need to keep their information as locked down as it is – especially since many of those people are waiving their rights to privacy by using an Android or iPhone. While Google pays lip service to privacy concerns, they have been a major offender in terms of selling data. We’re not worried about those things, though, we are worried about someone seeing the video we posted or knowing what we had for lunch.
Even worse, some of the companies that have applications on Facebook are some of the biggest offenders. Zynga, the largest social gaming company, was leaking users’ private details and, late last year, was sued for it. Here’s the scary part: No one actually minded. People who play FarmVille didn’t stop playing, they kept right on. This is not the first time Zynga has been scrutinized for privacy issues, either, but people continue to accept their requirements to pull user data and friends user data.
Again, FarmVille players gave Zynga access to their profile information. Zynga sold that information. There was no noticeable drop in the number of players. And, since you have to give Zynga access to your profile data in order to play their games, FV players said, by their actions, that they don’t mind their personal data being sold. But they mind… what? Individuals seeing their favorite movies?
The problem is that people see these security threat posts go around and immediately turn off whatever it was they were supposed to be scared of, but they don’t take the time to learn the privacy settings and think about what they actually need. People are so scared that they’re not even willing to publicly acknowledge what city they live in, whether or not they’re married, or their favorite books! Why is this information private? With your email address, a search engine and an hour, I can probably find out where you live, where your work, where your kids go to school and what websites you’re registered with. If you’ve ever posted an online dating profile, I can find out a whole lot more about you than you probably want me to know, so why be so scared of Facebook?
This is one of the best links I’ve seen on using the Facebook privacy settings. It clearly explains how to do it and what everything means, but doesn’t tell you what you’re supposed to do – it leaves that up to the individual.
In conclusion.
There are many ways in which people are “doing in wrong”. Especially as we muddle our way through new media and new ways to connect and socialize. The case could be made that we’re progressing faster than our neural routines can keep up with. We’ve got so many new things being thrown at us and we’re just trying to keep up with a world that keeps getting more complicated. Thing is, we need to stop adapting ourselves to technology and start working on ways to make technology adapt to us.
Right now, as a society, we’re looking at Facebook to transform how we socialize and keep in touch, but we should be using Facebook to enhance our relationships, not to create and foster them. The combination of the internet and cell phones are removing us from 93% of our communication. There’s an unwillingness to make a phone call instead of a text, even if it will be quicker. There are more and more people who won’t leave the house to spend time with friends because all they need to do is write on their wall. We’re isolating ourselves and claiming that it’s the wave of the future, but it doesn’t have to be.
Social networking can’t replace personal interaction and, I believe, in a few years, that will become self-evident. In the meantime, at least we can be more aware of how we use these social tools available to us. Just remember, these tools are only tools, and it’s up to us to figure out the best use of them.