4 posts tagged “disconnect”

I have spoken about The Cat, The Dog and Web 2.0, blogged about the disconnect of social behavior online and offline and very recently, Jennifer Aniston experienced it first-hand recently.

These 4 minutes explain your social graph

The core theme of this blog is social behavior offline, online. I have written a few posts in the past comparing the online and offline social behavior with The Cat, The Dog and Web2.0, The Online and Offline Social Disconnect, Gordon Gekko's Social Graph.

So when I saw an Op-Ed piece in The New York Times by Peter Lovenheim titled "Will you Be My Neighbor" in the New York Times here,  I was glad that it was not just me who saw what I saw. It underlines some of my observations as an immigrant coming from a culture where all the neighbors (apart from family) knew each other and shared a lot of their lives - offline, synchronous and involved.

You can read the details but here are a few lines from his article that are captivating and at the same time, concerning for our society:

"According to social scientists, from 1974 to 1998, the frequency with which Americans spent a social evening with neighbors fell by about one-third. Robert Putnam, the author of “Bowling Alone,” a groundbreaking study of the disintegration of the American social fabric, suggests that the decline actually began 20 years earlier, so that neighborhood ties today are less than half as strong as they were in the 1950s.

Why is it that in an age of cheap long-distance rates, discount airlines and the Internet, when we can create community anywhere, we often don’t know the people who live next door?"

My response to his Why based on observations and great conversations from my 8 years in America:

• America emphasizes the individual
• America emphasizes independence
• America teaches that destiny is in one's control
• American emphasizes Doing versus Being
• America, generally, measures success financially
• We, globally, still discriminate - color, religion, politics, sex, sexuality, race, country, attire, appearance, net worth, profession
  

I know a few of my neighbors but I know can do better.

Your responses, thoughts?

Imagine: [At least] love thy neighbor

I had a post on The Dog, The Cat and Web 2.0 a while ago and a few on friendship, its disconnect online and offline so I think it would be appropriate to celebrate Wall Street's anniversary and the change in how we can 'get' a friend after 20 years, with Gordon Gekko's quote in the movie:

I had a recent post on friendship, then a few casting a cat with a dog [Also read: Gordon Gekko's Social Graph] and a grocery store clerk in social networks, with my personal thoughts on making friends and comparing Web 2.0 with offline and online behavior.

Here are a couple of studies I found through Valleywag that are very relevant and bring out the paradox in the two worlds or maybe more appropriately, first and second life:

• England's Sheffield Hallam University's Dr. Will Reader studies whether social networks, with the aid of "add friend", helps in making friends.
  

The article states "The advent of online social networking sites like Myspace and Facebook is changing the average number of friends people have, with some users befriending literally thousands of others, Dr Will Reader of Sheffield Hallam University told the BA Festival of Science on Monday."

Then he goes on to find out that, not surprisingly:"Some 90 per cent of the online friends rated as ‘close’ have been met face-to-face". But wait, there is more - more disconnect with the online and offline friends:
The article refers to Dunbar's Number, also referred to by Malcolm Gladwell, in his book, The Tipping Point "that the average person has a social network of around 150 friends, ranging from very close friends to casual acquaintances.

The irony of all this is to consider a study as recent as in 2006, that brings out the decline in friendship.

"The study states that 25% of Americans have no close confidants, and that the average total number of confidants per person has dropped to 2."

• The second reference was to a Times of London article about the "Facebook Suicide". More importantly though, is this quote, which is very relevant:

"Patricia Rogers, a counsellor and fellow of the BACP, even worries that the feelings that lead to Facebook suicide could trigger the loneliness [ref: slippery slope of loneliness in prior post here] and lack of self-esteem felt by people who really do take their own lives.
"It could be incredibly damaging for the ego to realise that you haven't got as many friends as you thought you had, or that those friends aren't particularly meaningful," she says"
 
Imagine: Social is Social Does [not social "adds"]