Brave New World of Digital Intimacy

After all those short movies i've posted on social networks, especially Facebook, proving in an ironical way how these networks missleed our lives, i've just read an article in TY Times on this issue, proving the other side of the coin.

Though it's a bit long and well documented, it seems to me that it presents the facts from only one point of view. I can not agree more with the statement of weak ties being more responsible to one's succes than the bonding ones, especially when it comes to a long distance business (see Mark Granovetter's work on this). The 'friends' people have in their networks are rarely very close friends and kins, but most frequently different kind of aquaintences willing to follow, help and wishing they knew things about the followed ones. On the other side, every person actively engaged in online updates on their life, as the author of the article is commenting on, is doing this in a very aware way, trying to sound profund and interesting and thus becoming more and more capable of self observing.

"Many of the avid Twitterers, Flickrers and Facebook users I interviewed described an unexpected side-effect of constant self-disclosure. The act of stopping several times a day to observe what you’re feeling or thinking can become, after weeks and weeks, a sort of philosophical act. It’s like the Greek dictum to “know thyself,” or the therapeutic concept of mindfulness. (Indeed, the question that floats eternally at the top of Twitter’s Web site — “What are you doing?” — can come to seem existentially freighted. What are you doing?) Having an audience can make the self-reflection even more acute, since, as my interviewees noted, they’re trying to describe their activities in a way that is not only accurate but also interesting to others: the status update as a literary form. "

But what about those not-so-avid users who are there just because they were invited? Those who would rather meet their real friends in person and are annoyed by all those wannabes? I also wonder how these 1000 to 5000 people followers live their lives... real lives.

The article is very interesting, though, and worth reading.
Can be found here.
Via influx insights.