Does social media really connect us?

I won’t mislead you. I’m about to write about an issue you’ve heard about all week. One that many bloggers have already weighed in on. But, one, too, that continues to interest many of us. So, I’ll start like this:

It’s Sunday afternoon. What better time for a little preaching? Friends, choir, let’s talk about the power of social media.

For my readers who are not addicted to the happy little crack-stream of Twitter, I offer this brief preface:

Last week, David Armano, author of Logic + Emotion, called his network to action. His friend Daniela had found herself in a very difficult situation. She had left an abusive marriage and found herself – and three children– with nowhere to go.

David and wife Belinda were moved to help. They took Daniela into their home and set about raising money for her new life. With the humblest of words, David asked his social network to help, calling on us to raise $5,000 to help her start over. And, we answered. Over 500 of us. Raising not only $5,000, but $16,000 in a matter of hours.

(For more, read Business Week's summary)

Since this huge outpouring of support, bloggers have been doing our thing – commenting, deconstructing and critiquing the effort. Some say David made good use of his social capital, others say he should have stopped at $5000 or given the overage to an organization fighting abuse on a larger scale. At least one blogger said this disproportionate benefit to one person is unfair – that our money is better spent on attacking the root causes of social problems. An interesting point. But, one that I would counter.

Not long ago, my friend David Griner started a presentation on social media with the provocative question “how did things get so detached?” Meaning that with all this typing and surfing have we become disconnected?

I think the opposite is true. If anything, all the typing has reconnected us. It was the nuclear family of the 70s, the cul de sacs of the 80s and the ladder climbing of the 90s that divided us. Each in our own enclave. Living separate lives. Sure in our judgments. Able to cast a cold view onto a world of “others.” We exchanged phone calls, Christmas cards, invitations to carefully-planned parties.

Social media gave us an entirely different look into one-anothers lives. The New York Times calls this new vantage ambient intimacy:

…he was beginning to sense the rhythms of his friends’ lives in a way he never had before. When one friend got sick with a virulent fever, he could tell by her Twitter updates when she was getting worse and the instant she finally turned the corner. He could see when friends were heading into hellish days at work or when they’d scored a big success. Even the daily catalog of sandwiches became oddly mesmerizing, a sort of metronomic click that he grew accustomed to seeing pop up in the middle of each day.

This is the paradox of ambient awareness. Each little update — each individual bit of social information — is insignificant on its own, even supremely mundane. But taken together, over time, the little snippets coalesce into a surprisingly sophisticated portrait of your friends’ and family members’ lives, …

For all the banality of the life we live together online, it actually makes us more real to each other. Gives depth to us as people. Creates empathy and connection. It kicks us off of our perches and demands that we see each other as we are. What David did, what we all did with him, is perhaps a sign of that change.

Most of us believe that we owe something to the world around us. We help one another by throwing the occasional $100 check in the greater-good kitty, attending a well-catered fundraiser or letting the United Way take a few bucks out our paychecks.

Rarely do we look into the eyes of someone whose basic needs are unmet and say – how can I help?

In short, we abdicate our right and our responsibility to personally change lives. We believe it’s not ours to do. Rather, the work of people who answer a greater calling. The sort of thing that can only be done with pooled resources.

But, of course, we can do more. More small things. More micro interactions.

And, maybe, just maybe, social media will make this behavior more prevalent. Not for the big gestures – like David’s barnraising for Daniela – but in the changed mindset. The one that makes us more real to one another. More deserving of compassion and consideration and a chance. A mindset that recognizes that writing a check matters in the changing the world, but so does taking action to change one person’s life.

A new social safety net born of social media? You never know.

Comments

[Offshore Software Development India]

Hey Kate same with me. I always have better to write or better words to use and praise for something. But the comments have covered all the things over here.. Very good Job...

[Kim Ratcliff]

Great post. I have written about this too, at toknowbetter.wordpress.com.

Regarding nonprofit work, were you involved in the Community Shelter Board branding process? Barb Poppe is a good friend of mine, and I implemented the brand guidelines ologie did in the form of annual report and data report for CSB.

Cheers.

[S.D.]

The handicap of social media is the same handicap I encounter with telecommuters: there is no replacement for physical connections (i.e., eye contact, hand shakes, pats on the back, and just being THERE). Social media can be a hollow alternative that's a symptom of a society which is eloquently presented in Robert Putnam's book Bowling Alone. So as I hypocritically add to this medium, I recognize that social media is good for marketers who can exploit this trend, but generally not so good for society as a whole who would do well to understand why work, television, and the Internet has usurped togetherness (I realize that word sounds a bit lame). Daniela's story may seem to contradict this theory, but wouldn't you agree it's the exception rather than the rule?

[ScottyHendo]

No doubt about it. With 1 billion on the Internet and 3.3 billion with mobile devices, the world has changed.

The ability for each person to share many different streams of their life (via Flickr, blogs, YouTube, Facebook,etc.) can create many points of reference for us to get a better sense of the person.

I thought you might like to see my follow-up post to the one you linked to in yours. Directly related to your main point, I found Armano and I were able to have a real conversation because of the trust engendered by our respective digital footprints.

Here it is:
Helping Our Neighbors: Further Thoughts on the Armano Family's Act of Charity http://tr.im/5jlr

@scottyhendo

[Dave Allen]

Social networking is as old as time itself. The wonderful response that David Armano got to his request to help an abused woman is typical of what we can achieve when we all pull together. Technology helps us do this much quicker these days but it is wrong to think that technology makes social networking possible any more than we've always, as human animals, been social networkers.
Anthropologists have long pointed this out. John Gray has written in Straw Dogs: Thoughts On Humans and Other Animals - "we ourselves are technological devices, invented by ancient bacterial communities as a means of genetic survival."

For the curious here's a link to an essay I wrote on the subject -

http://www.social-cache.com/2008/06/on-social-media-blogs-and-advertising

[Rolf]

Well, I think it depends.

There are also examples of people in sosial networks cheering on other to take their lives, and watching them as they do.

Trolls are not unkown to any of us, I should think.

So I don't believe sosial networks are bliss. I think real sosial interaction is far better.

But sosial networks add the possibility of sosial interaction to a former very lifeless media. The web was very technological and cold. It also makes the world smaller, so I can interact with people I most likely wouldn't meet otherwise. And this ability, as we have seen, makes it possible to get closer to people who need help and to those who can help.

[mark]

what *more connected* are you talking about? One week in, and what do u really know about #daniela? besides the one photo Armano posted...do u know her last name, anything at all about her? nope, all u know is what Armano tells you.
http://twitter.com/MarkMayhew

[Kate Richardson]

Leigh great post.

I think there will always be people weighing in on the ever contentious topic of supporting 'the individual' versus the much more amorphous 'greater cause'.

But it is possible to do both.

And this isn't just a story about one individual. I think it may have lit a spark under our concept of social media and its power to change lives. This is something that can be harnessed in pursuit of the 'big' and the 'small'.

[mose]

Damn I hate agreeing with people.

Nice post.

[Gavin Heaton]

Excellent post, Leigh. I agree, the ability of many small actions to create lasting change is very powerful. Look at organisations like Kiva.

For many of us, large gestures and donations are impossible, but many smaller actions clearly directed can really change the lives of an individual. And it gives us a chance to be engaged in an act that is much larger ...

Now that, is a story to be proud of.