Relationship Age

Posted by shannat1 on
Sunday, April 27th, 2008 at 8:17 pm

posted by Shanna

If we are in the information age and technology has given birth to social media, then perhaps it has moved us into the Relationship Age? We are social beings and we have eventually created ways to communicate more with each other using tools like the internet and mobile devices.

I was reading Clay Shirkey’s book: Here Comes Everybody and it made me think about collective mass and our need to have relationships. Even on the internet we have found ways to carry on our base social rules of accountability. We are strongest in groups and some may think we can hide behind a computer, but with social media there are still rules to play by or you CAN and will be “flamed”.

The social pressures are still alive and well on the internet and if we don’t abide by them we run the risk of being cyber outcasts. However, if we share the views of certain internet cohorts, then you are building relationships and a beautiful online union has been formed. This meeting of similar minds, whether it be underwater starfish collecting or Dwight Shute bobble head collecting, has possibly helped the information age give way to forming a tighter relationship.

In the end it comes back to us. You, me, and this wonderful group dynamics that we call relationships. Information is great and we have to decipher what we want to take in, what value there is to it and what we do with it. However, without our ability to socialize and form relationships, social media wouldn’t exist. I hesitate to say that social media is changing how we socialize. I would instead ask how socializing dictates how we use technology.