While wandering through the interminable cyber networking fair that is LinkedIn, I recently stumbled upon an extraordinary profile. The subject (she will remain anonymous, though I find it unlikely that she reads our humble periodical)
self-described her type of work as “LinkedIn Trainer; Social Media Marketing PR Strategy Speaker; and Social Media Club Chicago Founder,” and then listed seven bullet points that were iterations of these positions in different scenarios.
Having long been a skeptic of the worth of social media, I initially thought that she intended a satirical meaning through the copious amount of similar positions listed. Is there really a “Social Media Club?” A club existing for the sake of a metaphorical club? Yet further examination that the profile was presented with full sincerity. And, indeed, she is firmly embedded in the culture of social media: following 2,736 people, and with 8,410 followers, the play-by-play regularity of this self-described “Social Network Maven’s: tweets are what disturbed me the most. From the page I looked at, three hours was the average time between tweets, and most everything cultural and personal was covered: conversations with her daughter, Super Bowl scores, articles being read. I’m surprised we don’t get a detailed analysis of her caloric intake, or any “I’m tired of tweeting” posts, yet I didn’t have the time or interest to browse all 10,510 messages.
Such consistency begs the question, Who is reading these? Who does she assume is reading them? Is this kind of communication inviting interaction, and if so, what is the nature of this kind of interaction? One wonders at the sincerity of Twitter’s claim to be “Without a doubt the best way to share and discover what is happening right now.”
Critics of social media argue that it is making us less human by narrowing our understanding of connection with one another: connection is seen in bits and pieces, snippets of information presented apart from any real understanding of another. And though advocates respond with the claim that it is still a form of communication, the fact remains that “communication” is both a qualitative and quantitative term.
In her book Alone Together, MIT professor Sherry Turkle argues that “Under the illusion of allowing us to communicate better, social media is actually isolating us from real human interactions in a cyber reality that is a poor imitation of the real world” (quoted from The Guardian’s review). Turkle’s perspective echoes that of Wendell Berry which he voiced during a 2009 interview at the University of Wisconsin Madison: internet communities are metaphors of true community, a reality that must constantly be held in mind. The same is true of communication on Twitter: it is a metaphor for communication, present, attentive, auditory, contextual, human communication, and must be remembered as such.
The more significant question that this person’s online profile asks, however, is What is it like to be around this woman? How does one feel conversing with her? What does she like to talk about? I do not know her, and will not presume to infer her personality from her pages, yet it is obvious that her smartphone is always nearby and at the ready.
Twitter itself isn’t to blame for this kind of obsessive use, just as alcohol doesn’t necessarily lead one to alcoholism. Yet, like any addiction, the object becomes the center of the user’s life. It governs thoughts, attention, and energy in such a way that the object permeates the daily pattern of the person’s life. Social media informs the way we imagine communication with others, shaping our understanding of what conversation, connection, and relationship mean. If we are to remain human to one another, and to ourselves, we must participate in true, thoughtful, complex modes of communication that require attentiveness and effort. We must be continually reminded of the reduced form of communication that social media requires, to be in the world of Twitter yet not of it.
