Unsocial Media?

With the rise of Social Media (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) free long distance on cell phones, VOIP (Skype), people feel even more connected to one another than ever before.  It’s easy to keep in touch with that old high school friend or college roomate.  The people that used to fade into the collage of memories from the past are now part of our daily “status updates”.

With that new reality has come a sense of what I think is “false” community.

Because we have “knowledge” of what is happening in their life, we feel like we “know” them.  We  don’t.  Knowledge of someone is never the same as really understanding and interacting with them.  We all laugh at the poor delusional guy that professes his love and commitment for a public celebrity- and then seems confused when that love is not returned.  But in reality, we are that guy.

We think we are connecting to what is happening in people’s lives when we read “updates” from them.  We are not.

So how do you use social media to create real community?  It begins with seeing it as a way to interact – to give and recieve – from one another. Here’s an example from my own situation.

I have about 150 or so “friends” on Facebook, and I have a couple of Twitter accounts.  Most of the FBF are people that asked me to be their friends because they recognized my name on someones FB page and simply clicked a button.  They aren’t really interested in what is happening in my life, it just seemed “nice” to ask me to be a friend.  In some cases, they have even forgotten that they made the request and that the stories they post about how hung over they are, (complete with pictures) etc. are being read by the Executive Pastor of their church. I digress…

Out of these 150 there are a dozen people or so that I interact with, where we actually communicate with in BOTH directions.  In every case, FB is not the only way we interact, it is just one of many.  So what is the point of this rant??

Real community is give and take.  Real community is built when you interact with each other and connect on more than a “status update” level.  Real community is what we are all designed for, and what we all need.  Don’t let the ease of Facebook steal what is real.

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