How to Lose Friends with Social Media

Recently a colleague complained to me that I’m not following him back on Twitter. Another one posted a comment to a Facebook application, offended that my wall was not accessible to her. And another one got annoyed when comments to my online status stayed unanswered for long periods of time, although there seemed to be plenty of activity on my profile.

Which made me think about the different uses people apply to their online social networks and tools – and their personal expectations.

In general, people don’t seem to realize, that most social technologies, including Twitter and Facebook, are asynchronous communication tools. That means, that they are meant to post information now that people pick up at a later point in time at their own discretion. Consequently, the builders of those tools have built in mechanisms and algorithms which – in an attempt to manage the communication load – often arbitrarily display the newest status updates, photos, news on the various ‘friends’ you follow; the newest ones first but in no particular order and without any particular ranking. Therefore, your profile may look active today when your updates are actually from a while ago. What makes matters worse is the fact, that your profile also displays replies, posts, comments by your friends – dependent on your preference settings. So, there may be recent activity on your profile although you haven’t logged in for weeks.

What we need to remember is that people use these tools in different ways, which is dependent on how they are able to access them throughout the day. For example, due to company security restrictions, I can only access most social media sites from my iPod touch during the day and from my home desktop at night. Consequently, I try to manage my Twitter stream by:

• only following people that talk about things of interest to me (which at this point does not include when they go to the shower or watch the sun rise) :)
• only posting information and links on Twitter that I find particularly intriguing from a professional and intellectual perspective

Some good additional suggestions on social media etiquette were posted by Chris Brogan.

Consequently, I don’t prohibit anybody from following me but choose who to follow based on the above criteria. Unfortunately but not surprisingly, other people use Twitter in different ways which includes building an online reputation as connectors or distributors of any kind of information, measured by a ratio of followers to followees (called tweeciprocity on Twitter) or alike.

Sorry, guys, for virtually screwing up your cyber-reputation. I hope that the intellectual and informative value that my posts provide to you compensate for that. :)

But back to asynchronous communication tools, old-fashioned Email being one of them... They allow you to access and respond in a different-place/different-time manner and thus the expectation for somebody waiting for a response should adjust accordingly. Even though you may instantaneously see my post doesn’t create the need or ability for me to immediately respond; nor does it require me to respond at all. :)

In contrast, synchronous communication gives you instant feedback but requires you to also immediately respond. This direct feedback loop, however, helps to quickly overcome ambiguity, reach agreement, minimize time, and is, therefore, a much better way to arrive at mutual consent and to make decisions.

So, why not pick up the phone if you actually want to accomplish something?

Or, if the person you want to talk to is actually sitting in the cubicle across the aisle: Why not get up, walk over, and talk to him or her?

You might actually make a real friend …

Attention Deficit Disorder: Personal Demise or the Next Step of Human Evolution?

According to modern evolutionary theories, evolution is based on two fundamental changes in life forms, both of which adhere to the process of natural selection: arbitrary mutation and adaptation to the environment.

Recent years have seen a remarkable increase in children diagnosed with attention deficit disorder (ADD) often in conjunction with hyperactivity (ADHD). ADHD is now thought to occur in 3-5% of school-age children and is more common in boys. It is not yet known what causes ADD, but there does seem to be a genetic influence.

As a condition, ADD is considered to be a deviation from 'normal' capabilities (which constitutes a challenge for educators and a burden for many parents). But what if, in classifying ADD exclusively as a state of reduced mental capacity, chemical imbalance or 'different wiring' (as often alluded to), we’ve gotten it all wrong? What if ADD was actually an adaptation to dealing with an increasingly complex environment? An environment where children grow up exposed to increased levels of external stimuli and information, at an ever-increasing pace. And an environment that presents them with an increased number of multimodal communication channels to be processed in parallel.

Some scientists even correlate rises in ADD among children to a nature-deficit disorder, i.e. the lack of exposure of today’s children to the need for involuntary attention processes as required in natural environments.

At the same time, popular new-age beliefs are on the rise about the power of subconscious decision-making over thorough scientific proof (see e.g. Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink!) paving the way for societal acceptance of short-term focus and spontaneous, uninformed snap judgments.

Not surprisingly, this theory of “Thinking without thinking” has been sharply criticized by supporters of evidence-based decision making such as Michael LeGault in Th!nk, advocating the continuous need for critical thinking and problem-solving strategies as well as emphasizing a concerning decline of related capabilities among the young generations.

So, are we dealing with a classic dichotomy of contrasting trends and opinions, both of which would be supporting the hypothesis of natural selection through adaptation, with one, however, providing hope and justification for phenomena like ADD, the other dooming us to look at a future of self-inflicted mental decline?

Many aspects of the modern information society bear the risk of information overload for the human recipient and the need for them to quickly filter huge amounts of references rather than store significant amounts of information for longer periods of time.

Effectively navigating through the jungle of online media has become essential to gain and maintain social connectivity and acceptance. Crouching through a multitude of opinions in the form of blogs and discussion forums, while engaging in duels of rapidly fired bursts of micro blogs to create situational awareness in an increasingly complex world has replaced externally led knowledge acquisition and indoctrination. It is now truer than ever: "It's who you know, not what you know!"

So, are modern IT-based communication tools and techniques our response to reduced human capacity in focusing, critical thinking and long-term memorization or are those societal trends and challenges the result of the new and celebrated technologies?

Is, consequently, the best medicine in this case possibly no medicine at all, but a matter of better diagnosis resulting in differentiation between true ADD/ADHD and different learning styles and cognitive specialization of today's children?

Might it, therefore, require a revised educational system that embraces mental diversity in order not to be in the way of human evolution and adaptation to ITC innovation?

Or should we – God forbid – be a little more critical towards the adoption of modern technologies and should we study and consider their impact more thoroughly before exposing future generations?