A Rambling Long Post on Social Networking (I think)

Lately, I’ve been somewhat antsy when it comes to writing, feeling the need for more expression, but clueless as to what I would ever express. Part, just part, of it stems, I think, from the changing function of blogging. When I started my first blog, just about 7 (7!!) years ago, blogs seemed mainly for social purposes. Not networking in the twitter or facebook sense, but for sharing your life and thoughts with friends and family who knew of the blog. But as twitter and facebook came around, those services required much less work and much more networking, thus antiquating this original purpose of a blog. Sure, many blogs are still that (its what I mainly blog about), but my blog, because it is personal, feeds into facebook. I get more feedback from people reading it there than I ever do on the original site.

Blogs seemed to evolve, to become more serious, more commercial. Because of these circumstances, maintaining a personal blog that remains primarily personal, seems outdated. Why do that, when you can reach more people easier using facebook (or any other social networking site). Why devote to writing blog posts when you can continually update the web, and presumably your followers, about your life, 140 characters at a time.

Blogs seemed to be the first step towards what, I would term, the de-personalization of relationships. More and more of our contact with people is digital. This could be viewed as a blessing, allowing friends and family that are far apart geographically to remain close. Granted, phone calls could do that. But blogs, twitter, facebook, and the like make the maintaining of the relationship so much more efficient. But when efficiency becomes the sole goal, something’s lost.

Efficiency, in part, has led to twitter and facebook increasing in popularity, while personal blogs, personal email, phone calls, and actual contact are too time consuming to be worked into the day. This is not to begrudge social networking sites. I use them frequently, and find them incredibly helpful for staying in touch with my family and friends. But I think, if we only have that, two things occur.

First, we eventually realize we are missing something. The contact is superficial, its not real; for lack of better wording, it fails to sustain the need for communal interaction we so often desire. Obviously, the use of these sites create a digital community that is larger, and much larger, than our physical community could ever be. But with that growth in quantity, there is a dilution in quality. Reading about what someone else did is not the same as talking to them about it, let alone experiencing it with them.

Second, we devalue our relationships. Everything becomes subject to sacrifice at the altar of efficiency. Truthfully, many things within relationships are not “efficient.” Its not particular efficient to spend time discussing feelings; its not efficient to share ones past experiences; its not efficient to talk openly about one’s dreams and goals. Much of this, if all we are concerned about is the most efficient use of our time, becomes useless. There’s no reason to invest our time into such matters when we can consider ourselves a friend by clicking “like” to a status update.

However, if these sites are used to supplement the relationships within our physical community, the possibility of the enhancement of those relationships exist. The physical contact and conversation is now enhanced by the knowledge gained through the digital community. If the efficiency inherent in these sites is used not to create more time for ourselves, but to develop more knowledge and investment in our relationships, very positive things can happen.

I think the crux of the problem still lies in that we all want to be considered good friends, but at times, in the middle of long work weeks, with various personal and familial obligations, it feels impossible to invest time in something outside of that. After all, we all need some time to decompress ourselves. And these sites allow us to keep that time for ourselves, keep that feeling that we are a “good” friend, without having to invest substantial amounts of precious time.

But part of me doesn’t think that it requires substantial amounts of time, as opposed to a conscientious effort. We all have are time constraints, and using twitter or facebook or blogs or whatever to sustain relationships over time is helpful. In some respects, doing so is realistic and necessary. But, I think we (I know I do) often forget that these sites should not just be repositories of information of the lives of our friends and family; they are forums, means that allow us to communicate. Sometimes I wonder if we forget that dialogue and discussion can be achieved through these tools, maybe not to the extent provided in physical interaction, but interaction nonetheless.

In a rambling, roundabout manner, the social networking sites still require our investment, of both time and energy, to be truly effective, as well as efficient. If we don’t invest, our relationships through these sites will be just as shallow as many presuppose, and they will provide no real or significant enhancement to our relationships with friends and family.

Its important to remember that regardless of the methods, the basics and core tenets of relationships stay the same; communication, hard work, effort, time. Thus, sites like facebook and twitter, despite their ingenuity and assumed efficiency, still require the same work and effort in our relationships to be truly effective. If not, it only becomes one more obstacle in the way of relationships, rather than a beneficial tool.