heidi go seek

Yesterday I came across an article called, You Are Not My Friend, from TIME Magazine. This article bothered me, but it also got me thinking about a lot of different issues of social networking, some related to the article, some not. First, there seems to be a lot of people who fall into the category of "I just don't get it," like the article's author. But like the author, they have to proclaim how much they don't get it in some sort of public way, criticizing the rest of us who do participate. Maybe this is the real heart of my issue with this article. It's like people who criticize the music I listen to or the books I read, to which I say "if you don't like it fine, but leave me alone to enjoy it."

The original quote that caught my attention was posted on Library Stuff:

Until we can build some kind of social network where we can present our true, flawed selves - perhaps some genius can invent something that takes place in a house over dinner with wine - I say we strip down our online communities to just the important parts.

To this I sort of agreed, I think that's what compelled me to click on the link. Andy supplied a good link in a comment to the del.icio.us post to a post about authenticity. Do we represent our "true, flawed selves" online? I can't say I know the answer to that for everybody, but I like to think that I do, but I also like to think of myself as a work in progress anyway (online and offline). What I may disagree with in the above quote though is stripping "down our online communities to just the important parts." What is important to me about an online community doesn't sound like what would be important to the article's author.

In my head though, I think I've been able to narrow down a few key issues to all of this stuff; privacy, contact grouping, fatigue, and authenticity. I have comments about each of these that I will save for another time, but first I want to comment some more on this particular article.

But now we're definitively friends, having taken a public vow of friendship on friend-based websites, wearing metaphorical friendship bracelets on the earnest Facebook, the punky MySpace, the careerist LinkedIn and the suddenly very Asian Friendster.

First off, how we use the word "friend" in an online environment has changed. The author is quick to point out that this is a bad, almost superficial thing, but I disagree. The internet has done more to connect people than any other technology thus far. Social networking has removed the limits of geography, why do I have to limit my so called, "friends" to where I live or to whether I've met them personally? I don't think I have to.

This is hard to say to a friend, but our relationship is starting to take up too much of my time. It's weird that I know more about you than I do about actual friends I hang out with in person--whom I propose we distinguish by calling "non-metafriends."

So it's great that you enjoy hanging out with your so called, "non-metafriends," but if you're worried about your time and the energy it takes to maintain a relationship with a "metafriend", then why are you even bothering to participate? This is what I don't get. I seem to have no problem managing metafriends and non-metafriends. Knowing the mundane details of their lives doesn't even bother me. Maybe that makes me weird? But I think it adds to the authenticity of a person's online self. It's ok if I miss a few days of a metafriend's Twitter stream or status updates on Facebook if I'm busy, but when I'm not I enjoy "dropping in" on them to see how they're doing. I guess my point is that it doesn't have to take up too much of your time if you don't let it. Of course maybe I have no clue because I am 73% addicted to Facebook anyway. Do I have time? Maybe not, but I seem to still have a life outside of Facebook so I'm not worried about it. Is it a matter of priorities? Probably so, but I know where my offline priorities are too. My life is just as much online as it is offline and I intend on using both of those to my advantage.

Also, you're a bit aggressive in our friendship. Would a non-metafriend call me up and say, "Hey! Guess what? I have a bunch of new pictures of me"? Or tell me he'd colored in a map of all the places he'd ever been?

Here's the part where I started to think that the author is completely wrong. "Would a non-metafriend call me and say...?" Maybe not so directly but I think the answer is more yes than no. Let's think about it, we're by our very nature selfish people, and even superficial. I recently bookmarked a link to Lifehacker on Four Rules to Understand What Makes People Tick. The four rules (originally via lifehack.org) didn't surprise me either:

• Rule One: People Mostly Care About Themselves
• Rule Two: People are Motivated by Selfish Altruism
• Rule Three: People Don't Think Much
• Rule Four: Conformity is the Norm

We're not talking metafriends here; we're talking about real people. It seems almost natural that this behavior be transferred over into real people's online habits too. Not only do the rules not surprise me they don't bother me. While I'm generally empathetic I would be lying if I said I didn't care mostly about myself, and I actually think that's the way it should be. This works only because of Rule 2, we are motivated by "selfish altruism"; this is the balance to the first rule. This is probably a topic for a whole other blog post though, but I do think it directly relates to how we are as people, not just online people vs. offline people. The people are one in the same; I think that we're just more transparent online than we are offline.

The horror is, I can't opt out.

Yes you can. Don't sign up for Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, or LinkedIn, or fill in the blank. It doesn't sound like you're going to miss much anyway.

I do have more to say about this but I'm going to save the rest for another blog post. My blog is in desperate need for something other than del.icio.us links anyway.

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