I find myself in actual contact with people that I know. Social media is leaking from my computer and out into my actual social life. How did this happen? I thought online social networking was an unhealthy way of sublimating my natural urge to gather with other primates and form tribes. I have been operating under the false pretense, that by participating with Twitter, Facebook, Blogger, LinkedIn, Digg, Foursquare and various topical message boards, that my social muscles would atrophy and I would become a virtual social brain in a jar.
But tonight I am meeting up with some friends from my distant past. These are people that I "friended" three decades ago in grade school. Last month I went to a birthday party of a girl I used to hang out with in junior high. And my 20th high school reunion was entirely organized online. The online-to-offline spillover seems to be happening on a fairly regular basis now. I find myself in actual contact with people that I know. When did my online community associations start bridging the gap, between implicit relationships...and real-life flesh & blood connections?
The Internet and Social Life, a 2003 study by John Bargh & Katelyn McKenna, (The Annual Review of Psychology, July 2003) demonstrates that, while it has been a widely contested opinion; some researchers believe that connections made via the web actually assist groups to bond with each other offline.
And according to a 2007 study done by the Department of Telecommunication, Information Studies, and Media of Michigan State University (Nicole B. Ellison, Charles Steinfield & Cliff Lampe) online social networking can actually strengthen real world relationships. They proved, with empirical evidence, that connections made through Facebook increased young adults social stock.
"Online social network sites may play a role different from that described in early literature on virtual communities. Online interactions do not necessarily remove people from their offline world but may indeed be used to support relationships and keep people in contact." Read the rest of the study here: http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol12/issue4/ellison.html
Given that drinking beer tonight, with folks that I haven't seen since the Reagan administration, may not qualify as a meaningful social connection; it is encouraging to find out that my involvement in web communities may pay real life social dividends. It's possible, that as the lines dividing online & offline continue to blur, we will no longer make the distinction between our virtual and tangible friendships. Social media continues to evolve. I imagine, that 75 years ago, relationships fostered over a telephone line were considered cold and impersonal. Fast forward: it seems as if most couples now spend more time on the phone than engaged in face-to-face conversations.
What will be the next turn of social evolution? Holographic avatars? God I hope so: that would be rad.
Read further musings here: http://cmb-blog.blogspot.com/
ไม่มีความคิดเห็น:
แสดงความคิดเห็น