Social media is a fantastic way to communicate value, expertise and or passion to numerous amounts of people. It is also a great to way to keep relevant people up to date with what you’re doing with your day, week or next client. But what about the more meaningful stuff? What about the awesome fun stuff you’re doing with close friends? I notice a lot of people like inform their weak ties about the activities they’re doing with their BFFs.
This can lead to BFFs thinking you don’t really enjoy their company quite as much, and your weak ties thinking your closer than you are (surprise dates!). Which can be a problem because suddenly who we consider ‘friends’ is a very different from what we use to. Does it take anymore or any less to be my BFF?
In my discussion for the Future of Conferences I discussed the difference between ‘actually being there’ and ‘reading the Twitter streams’ – this is important not only for conferences but for activities with friends too. After all, no body wants to read about being in the mosh pit at Slipknot over actually being there! So if we’re truly friends, should I need to read your Twitter stream to find out you had a great time with me over the weekend?Are these interactions going to strengthen our ties having never met? Or are they going to rip existing ties apart?
I’m still unsure – but one thing that is certain is that this is changing the way we interact, consider and experience social situations and people.
14 Comments
An interesting question.
I feel Twitter (indeed all social networking channels) have the power to both strengthen and weaken relationships.
For example there are many people on Twitter that I did not know previously, that I would say I have developed legitimate offline friendships with. Without social networking channels these relationships would have taken a lot longer to evolve because the “getting to know you” stage would have been long and limited to our real world interactions.
However, I can see how people who are sensitive or paranoid about relationships and friendships normally could have these feelings amplified by social networks. They could come to believe that a lack of their presence in a persons status update, blog post or facebook photo album is reflective of some turmoil in the relationship.
In my humble opinion, at the end of the day these are issues that are unavoidable and come more directly back to the individual than to the social medium.
It doesn’t do much to change friendships for me – i’ve been making friends on the net (who translate to real life ones) for over 10 years. Twitter’s just a new ‘chat program’ in that sense. (with different rules to others, but basically the same.)
If you’re into weak friendships – shallow ones with shallow people – there’s plenty of scope for that on Twitter (and the rest of the net). I think it’s who you are that is reflected in your tweets and those you follow, not the medium – as Joel said above.
Understand the scenario you paint in the post, and I suppose its a matter of whether your BFFs are on Twitter too. Then there’s no insult taken for doing a quick reply to others when out to dinner, or even telling each other on Twitter how much you enjoyed the catchup offline.
My experience is the weak ties can very quickly become BFFs. Rather than cheapen the ties, I have made deep and meaningful offline friendships from getting to know people on Twitter, by engaging in friendly banter (or stoushing) you get a real sense of what people are like over a length of time. By the time you meet them IRL, you know what their general interests are, you have at least one point of view in common with them, and you know roughly whats going on with them.
With the BFFs, you already know the day to day stuff that’s going on with them via their Twitter stream, so you can just cut the small talk catchup stuff and jump into a deeper and more meaningful, or fun and random conversation. My BFF friendships have definitely been enhanced by Twitter, and I have expanded the BFF circle particularly, in my IRL social life.
Jye
imho, social tools/services/media do not cheapen friendships, it rather extends them (reaching the unreachable), it deepens them (enduring personal/commercial ties)and it journalises them (helps keep record/history) – i might be running the risk of romanticising them but that’s what i can rescue from the otherwise noise stream
Like any technology communication such as email it would be easy for a couple of people to completely misinterpret conversations and take them the wrong way. There are people I’ve been following on Twitter for some time that I have recently met in person, and there is nothing like meeting face to face to build upon the relationship. And there are those I’ve met face to face that I’d like to keep up to date with and Twitter is great for that.
None of this can replace a bit of gentle sledging of your mates on golf course or other face to face catchup – but we can connect to a lot more people. As you point out it is about being genuine and being genuinely interested as well as being interesting.
Right now spam DM’s are what is getting up my nose…
With Facebook, being able to keep up with what close(r) friends are doing does mean that I might contact them less often, but it also means that if we’re both busy or in different places we know what each other’s been up to. It’s come up to the point where it’s socially accepted enough to balance out being in touch less.
Lots of issues here and it really depends on how you use it. For some people it might mean BFFs start being less of BFIRLs but for others updating everyone on their activities with BFFs will prolong conversations, re-live the fun and strengthen friendships.
This has happened more than a few times, but I remember having to log off Twitter because I wanted to be at a certain event badly but obviously had to miss it.
I think that it all depends on what you consider a ‘friend’. Also, I don’t usually use the word ‘friend’ as is – I make references to how that connection was made like “Twitter friend”, “Facebook friend”, “High school friend”, “family friend”. People who belong to one “friend group” don’t necessarily share the same type of “privacy setting” that they would get with me.
It also depends on how people use Twitter – I consider my use to be within the semi-personal / semi-professional sphere. It’s also interesting to note that most of my “Twitter friends” were made via that site or via work and that there isn’t a lot of representation with my “high school friends” or my “housemate friends”
This sounds like the classic blame the tool for the user’s behaviour, the user’s perception and the consequences of both. Everyone uses the tool differently. If you find that Twitter cheapens your relationships, then perhaps it is worth reconsidering how you are using it.
I’ve been a social media user since 1992. Twitter is just another method of keeping in touch with people. Like the others, it has afforded me opportunities to meet new and interesting folks like yourself. Some of the people I have met along the way have become very good friends.
It is perhaps worth noting that back in the day (yes, I’m old) enthusiastic users of IRC used to get together for “IRC Parties”. These were planned gatherings of people who used a particular IRC channel. They were similar in concept to @*TUB gatherings, fostering community and friendship (lifelong in some cases), but longer term, spanning entire weekends, as many were travelling interstate to attend. Inevitably though, as at any @*TUB event, there’d be a group who would end up online reporting the goings-on back to the irc channel, making those who had to stay home somewhat envious. I don’t think anything has changed.
I see this all as part of the larger picture of relationship management. How do you make the most of your time with people, online and offline? How do you make people feel when you engage with them in both arenas? Personal awareness and responsibility has to come into the discussion somewhere.
Enthusiasm for media wanes over time as well. The people I mentioned from IRC have all grown up now and with that maturity have changed how they interact with social media. Is it perhaps a similar case with Twitter/social media noobs, that they will eventually grow up and change their habits?
Taking this from another perspective… I personally find it quite annoying when, for example, you’re having dinner with friends and they withdraw themselves from a conversation to tweet about what’s going on.
It’s interesting that as more and more technology is introduced to enhance communication, it feels like meaningful communication happens less.
Having said that though, I do agree with the points made about the opportunities that social media has provided to enhance friendships that we may not have had otherwise.
@Joel: Individual based. Like it.
@Sheila: Just another net communication. like it.
@Tip: some very considered thoughts!
@Jorge: A nice piece to the friendship puzzle.
@Justin: Nothing can replace those special moments.
@Katherine: I agree it comes down to how we use it too.
@Hannah: again, how people use it. Sounds good.
@Linda: ah yes. love irc 4eva. love your last paragraph.
@Clinton: I too share your frustrations! Much of where this post was born.
Thanks so much everyone so far. I’m sure there’ll be more. And I’ll make a follow up post soon.
So I can’t remember where I read this… it was long ago but paraphrasing – “In a lifetime, one person will be not be able to have more than 250 real friends (people they ‘know’ well) – this is a finite number limited by the amount of time that it takes to truly know someone. Of the 250, 200 will be same sex, 50 will be opposite.”
I think there may be some truth in this theory (there being a physical limitation of how long it takes to know someone well) regardless how accurate the number stated is. Real friendships take time and effort. Social technologies allow us to connect more efficiently and with greater numbers but I don’t think it provides shortcuts.
The likely outcome is that social technologies will have an impact on who, when and where friendships are forged – after all many great friendships have been forged through snailmail/penpal letters over the years, but if the theory above is right, we won’t end up with more ‘real’ friends than before, just more relationships.
~ @eunmac
I find I’m using Twitter for two purposes. One is to keep in touch with friends and acquaintances from other areas – mostly weak links and mostly from another online forum.
The other is to keep up to date with thought leaders and industry trends – very similar to Hannah’s semi/semi idea I guess.
If I want to see what my high school friends or similar are up to, I hit FaceBook (or – God forbid – catch up for coffee).
I do think that Twitter is not a good medium for strengthening close and meaningful friendships. Instead I think it weakens them because there is no replacement for human to human contact/bonding. The very idea that life can be encapsulated in 140 characters does not seem to make a lot of sense to me. However, I do think that Twitter is useful to keep in contact with your extended network.
Social media is definitely changing the way we interact with our friends and acquaintances. There was a great post a couple of months ago on the Harvard Business Blog site that discussed the idea of friend decay. The basic premise was that before the internet and social media especially, people would come together, become friends, and then typically drift apart. However, with all past friends connected online that friend decay no longer occurs because people stay ‘friends’ online and can monitor a person’s life/uploaded content. The author was wondering what affect this change in friendships would have in our lives. I think that it is an interesting idea myself.
I think this question can be extended to all social media networks and I don’t think there is one answer or a right or wrong answer. But that’s the beauty of social networks; they are what you make them and how you use them will reveal merits and minuses.
On a personal note, I think it’s done wonders for many of my recently formed friendships. =)