A friend of mine quoted an author earlier today who said that electronic communications are making us less human. Do you I agree?
A big part of my social life is through social media. My friends and family mostly live many miles away and I keep in touch through Facebook, Twitter, text, email etc. I also have a number of real genuine friends I have met through social media.
Just this weekend I had the following very enriching social interactions:
- A friend sent a tweet that he was going for lunch with another friend, I tweeted him. I joined them for lunch. We cooked up a new business venture, a podcast, we’re going to work on it this week.
- A friend mentioned he needed a lead gen expert. I sent a note to a friend. She Facebooked me from Spain that she’s out of the country. I sent an email to connect the two of them.
- My friend John in Atlanta (who I met through my podcast) sent me a shout out on Twitter just to say Hi. I sent him a tweet – we connected.
- I discovered a great little Yogurt place on the location based networking site Foursquare
- I saw a link to Barak Obama’s speech at the White House Correspondents dinner. I watched it on YouTube. The President was great Jay Leno tanked.
- A friend recommended that I see a speaker named Jared Spool. I watched his SouthXSouthwest Presentation on YouTube – he has a great audience interaction method
- I listen to podcasts while I workout, walk my dog, commute etc. Just this weekend I listened to:
o Marketing Over Coffee Two social media friends of mine (Christopher S Penn and John Wall) cover interactive marketing. I learned their perspective on the new Facebook ‘Like’ functionality
o I listened to another podcast called Dishy Mix and learned about virtual seminars
o Cliff Ravenscraft who I met at a podcasting conference has 30,000 listeners to his GSPN Lost Podcast
I replied to my friend with an email, and now I am sharing my thoughts as a blog. I’ll tweet about it and Facebook about it. A few people will Re-Tweet and ‘Like’ my post and spread it to their friends. I look forward to some interesting feedback and conversation. Very Social 
Personally I believe that since moving to Florida 8 years ago I lost a lot of social connection. Social Media has given me back a lot of human connectedness.
How about you? Are you more social or less human?
I'm not a blogger I Tweet a lot
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Great post Jay! I think social media makes you “more” human if used for its initial purpose – to engage. I used to think that the “old school” way of communicating in person or by telephone was the only way to “properly” engage – but, I soon realized that I was wrong. Social media as we understand it through the power of the internet is only a fabulous extension of communication. It allows you to connect with folks you may not ordinarily get to connect with and further engage with the people (customers, friends, family, etc.) you see in everyday life – as you so wonderfully pointed out above.
And, without social media – we wouldn’t get to read great posts on blogs like yours!
Thanks for sharing – and being social!
April
Jay, I think people who object to social media have never experienced its benefits. I’m married to one of them. Personally, I work from home and run a national running coaching company. Twitter and Facebook are hugely helpful to me as I grow my business. ALSO, social media helps keep me from feeling isolated. I have connected with so many people that I hadn’t communicated with in years, and now I interact with them daily. And I’ve been able to connect with my ex-students from 15 years of teaching English.
Social media allows us to be much more social, and that is extremely healthy. I have a couple of friends with cancer. The computer is a lifeline because when they can talk about it, it’s easier to cope with.
Jay, I always listen to your podcast and have published nine of my own. I love Ten Golden Rules. I have listened to some episodes twice, so I feel like I know you.
Thanks.
Social media has made us more aware and caring humans. The recent events in April of the no fly volcanic ash cloud left thousands stranded. With the help of the twitter hash tag #getmehome helped caring individuals connected with exhausted homeward bound people. The ash cloud Facebook site had similar stories of goodwill and amazing results. When the airlines and European flight authority lets you down social networking proves to be the human touch. Bouquets to everyone who helped out with #getmehome your simple act of humanity.
LW
I didn’t know about #getmehome Lorne. Great story, thanks for sharing.
Social Media definitely brings the water cooler talk to the work from home crowd, great point Debbie. When you have a minute, please call in to the podcast I’d love to have you join the conversation 206-888-6606
Jay
More social AND therefore, more human – definitely!
Kathy
On the surface yes the social media outlets keep you “connected” and allow you to keep in touch with peopel miles away, conduct business which sometimes would not be possible, HOWEVER and yes there is a however — the pendulum has swung too far to one way. We need to bring it back to balance.
People, especially the youth use this as there main source of connecting and while it allows you to talk and exchange quickly and easily, even with their own language, it does not replace the face to face communication which seems fewer and far between.
I recently saw a key note speaker and she was addressing an audience on the topic of Entrepreneurship. She said that technology is to be used for content not INTENT. In otherwords by all means text, email, msn, pin, twitter, facebook, use LinkedIn to pass on information – what a great tool however when it comes to creating the in-depth (more than surface hey how’s it going) relationship this is not the answer. It can begin the “engagement” process however the sooner you can take it to phone then in person, if possible, the better. When people use the word communication they fail to realize that communication is words spoken, tone of voice and body language. From my data words only have 7% impact where as tone has 38% importance and body language 55%. Even if the numbers vary slightly you can see that the words spoken have the least impact in communication. If we believe that social media holds the same “light” as face to face human communication we lose the essence of communication. One of the issues is that an email cannot express the same level of emotion as a person speaking. On many days if you asked me how I was, I may pin you back OK however if you called me and said the same thing you will hear in my voice that all is NOT ok and I can really use a friendly ear and even a cry. The other issue is miscommunication. I have heard over and over again from parents that have teenagers that texting creates so much more stress — miscommunication. This is also true of 0ur work environment. An email that is full of content is easily interpreted however and email or some other form that has some INTENT which is open to interpretation by the READER (not sender) may lead you down a road of miscommunication where it will take 5 emails to properly explain what YOU MEANT by your email versus a call that can clear things up in a few minutes.
We all know that technology is here to stay however we need to remember that it is a tool and that is it. Do not confuse it’s purpose.
It is sad to see two people having lunch together and they are both texting or on the phone and I always wonder if they are talking to each other. Or a person walking their dog or child in the stroller, to see them on the phone rather than interacting with their dog or child.
We all have a choice. There may be times when your best option and choice is technology. There will also be the choice to put down the phone and away all the technology and just do the old fashioned hanging out!