I came across an interesting article by Michael Estrin entitled "Is a social media bubble ready to burst?", which essentially is a response to Umair Haque's hypothesis that a social media bubble exists. Naturally I thought this was going to be a discussion on over-valuation and thus over-investment in social media start-ups; however, I was surprised to find that the focus was on social media's impact on relationships.
Haque's hypothesis is that social media is a home to weak, artificial connections - what he calls thin relationships, which are relationships that aren't built on mutual investment of time, money, knowledge, and attention. As a result, relationships are being devalued.
I think this is a question of definition. The depth of my "relationships" varies based on the social media platform and are thus context-dependent: My Foursquare friends are people I know and trust, my Facebook friends are people I know, my LinkedIn contacts are people with whom I have had some sort of business interaction at some point, and people I follow on Twitter are people I find interesting either professionally or personally. And before Foursquare, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter I had these same types of relationships with people. Social media hasn't changed that, it's simply made it easier for me to catalog and keep up with them. I've always had friends, business contacts, and people I thought were interesting.
Haque offers several pillars to his hypothesis that I found disjointed and fallacious. There may be something there but it begs for deeper analysis and evidence. For instance, he argues that social media is not creating real economic gains because disintermediation isn't occurring among gatekeepers such as PR agencies, recruiters, and other kids of brokers. How did he arrive at this conclusion? Is it gut feel or is there an economic study that supports this? And why is disintermediation important? Can't social media be purely additive and enjoyed by the people who chose to participate in it? Why is zero sum game a success criteria? Haque also argues that social media is full of hate (not all hate: equal parts love and hate) and uses newspaper web comments as an example. To me that has nothing to do with social media. There have been forums and discussion groups since the mid-1990's, full of both love and hate. Same goes for letters to the editors, cable news programs, talk radio, and conversations at parties. How is social media responsible for online hate? Was the Internet supposed to change centuries of human nature on its own?
The effects of all of this, Haque points out, is that the vitality of the web is at risk because "people discover less of what they value than what everyone else likes, right this second." I disagree. What those in my various social graphs are interested in is inherently of interest to me, if nothing else than to simply scan. There are plenty of times a social graph-endorsed article or video is not of interest, but I also come across content I might never have found otherwise. My profession is developing digital strategies for companies. How can I not be interested in what other digital strategists find interesting? I have a network of friends I have built up over my lifetime. How can I not be interested in what they are finding humorous or insightful?
(Haque also offers a rant against Farmville as another effect of social media, which I don't think is a particularly well-thought out impact. Throughout history people have been known to waste time in all sorts of ways.)
Social media is not degrading any of my "relationships" no matter how one defines them. For me, social media is a life-enhancer and purely additive. Based on this perspective, saying there is a social media bubble is like saying there is a friendship bubble or a business contact bubble. Social media is an enabler and a tool, not a machine-based substitute for real relationships.
