Sitting Under The Tree, Part 5

Oh, hello! Welcome! How are you? Isn't it a beautiful tree, with its leaves starting to change their colour. Come on, sit down, don't be shy. Didn't you offer do bring tea and cake? No? Oh, well, sit down anyway. Wait, what's that? Ah, you are checking for news on Twitter. And Google+. Are you going to send an update to Facebook, too? Don't forget to take a picture (not of me, the tree, silly) and send it to Instagram. You are now mayor of what on FourSquare? Anyway.

Over the last years, a multitude of social network services has become available. They offer easy ways to share short messages and pictures with the rest of the word, letting everyone know where we are, what we are up to, what consumes or mind at the moment. They have introduced new ways of getting (and staying) connected on professional levels, as well as on private ones. And while some people can't make head or tail of this social networking bric-a-brac at all, others can't wait to sign up with yet another service of that kind as soon as it is becomes available.

Personally, I really do find some of those services sort of usefull, or at least entertaining, and for some of them I am actually aware of what could be called serious use cases. Maybe it is exatly what confuses so many people: apart from guidelines on how to exchange data and use the interface of the service itself, the providers leave it to the users to figure out how the service could be used, and what it could be used for. It is left to the personal creativity of those who take part in it to shape it the way they think it works best for them.

Now, let's step back, let's try to get a bit more of the bigger picture. It really is an impressive number of services, isn't it? And that brings me to a serious question: can it really be possible to handle all this, is there really a way to actively take part in serveral of these online social networks? If it is possible, what would be a reasonable number of services to use? Is there a number that, when reached or crossed, would render real life activities (work, of course, but meeting people, too) impossible to take part in?

You may interject that there are no universal answers those questions, and I agree. We may work in different jobs, we have (if any) different affinities for online services, and we have developped different ways and preferences on how we like to socialise. Those and many more aspects may influence how we tend to deal with offers like social network services in general, as well as how much time we are willing to invest in this kind of virtual interaction.

Maybe you can remember when everyone was making fun of those "poor creatures" who felt the constant urge to check their e-mail inbox. Fiddling around with something like a BlackBerry in public? What a poser! Actually, we had a lot of fun with those weirdos.

Poser. Weirdo. Really?

No, I am not going to ask you to have a look into the mirror and tell me what you see there. (Hopefully, you would at least see your reflection. If not, well, you may be in trouble for completely different reasons.) But seriously, have a look around you: in the city, on the platform - just think of some public spaces and places. What did you see there a couple of years ago? What can you see there now? People, holding their phones, quite likely, but not only holding those devices up to their head to make (or take) an actual phone call.

Sometimes I get the feeling that, for many people, having access to the Internet, almost everytime and everywhere, is no longer an optional feature, something that is nice to have. Always online, always connected, always ready to interact. Text? E-Mail? Basics for the digital nomads, not even worth mentioning any more. Surfig the Web, updating blogs, watching some videos online? Now we are coming to a point.

Always online, always connected. Constantly looking for more friends, more followers, more updates, more likes. More influence, maybe? Could be. Afraid to miss something? Absolutely! It is all about being important. The news? No, of course not! The people are! Or at least they think they are, entangled in their narcissistic dreams, or maybe just caught in their efforts to receive some respect, respect they think they deserve.

But with all this engagement in networking, sending and receiving all kinds of updates, it takes me wonder how it is possible for, at least some, people to get any work done at all, to have what is called a life? They seem to be on-line 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And then you learn that they have just joined another social network. Why did they do it? Because it is all hip and new and possibly trendy, too?

They have become slaves to social networking. Their minds revolve around the next update. They laugh about all the other ones, who are "parts of the corporate machine". But who are they kidding? Apart from all the shameless self-promotion they are doing, aren't they just parts of yet another machine, the social network machine? And they are so very happy to give away even the last, most private bit of information, just for the sake of... Hm, for the sake of what?

What do you think? Please, feel free to share your thoughts on that with me!

But for now, come on, let us enjoy sitting under this beautiful tree, watching the leaves and listening to the wind. - And you are sure you didn't say you wanted to bring tea and cake?