I have been following Lauren Ashley Turner who runs a blog called Creative Turnaround and she has been posting some great links. One of them that I quite liked was called Social networks are intrusive nuisances written by Morton Marcus.

He is un-subscribing from various social networks, and perhaps my favourite quote in his article is:

“Even if I do know you, I don’t want to know or be known by the people you know.”

I think that a LOT of people have been feeling like there is too much activity on social networks. Our caveman ancestors perhaps lived in societys that only had around 50 to 100 people, so our brains are not quite so good at dealing with hundreds or even thousands of “friends”.

However, when you are connected to a massively interlinked community, all sorts of things can happen, good and bad, and what you really need to know is How Do I Survive in a HUGE Community?

The Bad

Embarrassment is amplified – If you make a small mistake in front of a few friends, hardly anyone will notice. If you make a small mistake on a large network everybody knows within seconds.

Attention is thin – You just cant give thousands and thousands of people “Personal attention” that they would deserve in the traditional model of friendship. You may have people listed as friends, but many are “e-acquaintances”. Both groups of people require the same interactions, but you may be more open with one group than another.

No Boundaries – In a connected world, its impossible to draw boundarys between different groups. Work friends become personal friends. You might offend your boss if you choose not to add him, because you want to avoid him seeing those drunken pictures of you at 3am.

The Good

All my people right here right now – Its amazingly fast to rally the troops. If you need something done quickly, a social group is one of the best places to put it.

Untapped resources are everywhere – Its incredible how that little boy you went to school with when you were 10 is now a CEO of a company you want to do business with. Many of the people you met years ago in your life have gained new skills and new positions, so it is well worth revising old friends to see if they can help you with projects.

You can work at creating new friendships – You can now be connected to people who you never thought possible. You can follow your idols and create new friendships with people who’s work you admire.

You can track everything – Gossip is dead! Digital gossip is so easy to track, you can follow who said what to whom and when. This is amazingly powerful to follow what people are saying about you, your work, or your products.

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