I find the scenario that you paint exhilarating. (I know, I’m just sorta’ funny that way.) Take the “alone” feeling out of play for a moment. How exciting that we live in an age where we can forge relationships electronically. Anywhere in the world. With people we would never have had the chance to meet otherwise.

How wonderful that we are able to communicate, via text message or other mechanism, with people we aren’t able to be with physically when we feel the need to share and talk.

Didn’t you say in a post just a short while ago how lucky you have been to meet so many people via “social media”? Wasn’t your bride one of those? Aren’t we going to get together sometime and hike and dine and all of that good stuff? Would that have come to pass in the world that pre-dated the “era of alone”?

“Alone” just might be a great thing, because it enables us to take that much more enjoyment in the act of coming together face to face, to talk, to laugh, to cry, to share.

Maybe it’s the era of “Alone, Together.”

Time for a little pick-me-up?
http://bit.ly/3HDia8

Mark,

I love the way you keep coming with these thought provoking posts.

I have used Social Media to connect with long lost friends- people I had not seen or met in YEARS. Now, whenever I am traveling, I send a status update about my travel schedule on Twitter and FB so that I can cement those relationships with offline interaction. On my recent trip to India, I was able to meet far more people than I have ever met (thanks to facebook).

Through FB, I know a lot more about what friends and family are doing than would have been possible otherwise. Now you may think it is sad that we are not picking up the phone and calling each other to share about how our day went? Not necessarily. Though a phone call feels more “personal”, it is not possible to share what you do with so many people over phone.

You need to balance both the mediums
- FB, Twitter etc for keeping in touch with community at large
- Phone, F2F for developing the close relationships

I confess to being old-school in that I really can’t understand a young man and his girlfriend coming to a restaurant together and spending most of their time texting away – probably not to each other. Or if they do, there’s something really wrong with their communication skills

I think part of the prevalent “alone in a group” thinking is that people are afraid of revealing their true selves.

I also think many people want it that way. Maybe it’s because in the times we live in, there are such high demands for perfection that they prefer to have a little control over how outsiders see them.

Of course, physical distance also plays a role. Take myself, for example. You all know me only through my blog, tweets, comments, the occasional e-mail – but since I’m physically on the other side of the Atlantic, there’s only a minuscule chance we’ll ever meet each other. So, in theory, I might be fooling you all the way, but then again, we would never have met had SM tools not been available.

Coming back to what we are trying to achieve through our presence in social media, especially for business, this opens up some interesting thought paths. Not least about trust.

A little meandering post, sorry. Just recorded the thoughts that came to mind.

In 1996 a futurist named Faith Popcorn wrote a book called Clicking. I’d not picked it up in years, until I read this blog. The book was written at a time when the internet was really just entering the mainstream and the concept of social media had barely been thought of.
The first (of 16) future trends discussed was “Cocooning”. People are comfortable in their own space for all kinds of reasons (security, familiarity etc.). Popcorn predicted that as technology evolved, people would be able to rely on it for most things that previously had to be done “outside their physical comfort zone”. Because of this, they’d not need to venture out of this “physical comfort zone” but would be able to do things they likely never would have been able to do in person (either because of distance or fear).
Fast Forward to 2009 – Cocooning = the Era of Alone.
What bothers me is where is this going to take us as it continues to evolve.
You challenged the term “Social” since there is clearly no social component (in the standard sense of human interaction) in this online world. I wonder that since 80% of our ability to communicate is from physical signals (the true social aspect of communication) if these distant connections will ever really evolve to real relationships and will we ultimately ever be able to truly “trust” them. And, if we can’t, what’s the point?

Thanks Jamie!! I resoundingly second your thanks to Mark for hosting these “parties”. I’ve learned so much from everyone who participates. Most blogs are very onsided with the post and comments to the post. This one has actually turned into a conversation which is why it has become so enlightening!

Future blog fodder: How do companies source, choose and manage younger workers who have come of age in this environment? What is the value of old-fashioned officing vs working together virtually? How do we coach better interpersonal skills into a generation glued to mobiles, many of whom are not good at one-on-one IRL interactions?

Late to the party, again. The fear here is the inability to develop basic communication skills by Gen Y, Gen Z to lead their future. Am seeing it now.

Solution as Jamie says (whoa, an email just arrived from her!), is to remove the temptation. Turn off the ‘berry during dinners or keep it on silent put away. Resist the urge for rudeness and seek one another’s eyes to communicate.
@Soulati

Thank you for your insightful article. I completely agree! I’ve stopped going on Facebook by principle. I want to hear about your life face-to-face, not stalk your wall.