Does social media ‘devalue’ relationships?
In his recent post at the Harvard Business Review blog, Umair Haque argues that the ’social media bubble’ has devalued relationships through inflation. In economics, the more money there is in circulation, the less value (i.e. buying power) that money has because increased circulation causes prices to rise, and Umair suggests that this is what social media has done to relationships.
It’s an interesting idea but I think it’s flawed.
For this idea to stand up you would have to assume that we have a strictly limited amount of attention to devote to relationships, and that every new relationship you participate in somehow degrades the value of all of your other relationships. I don’t think this is true.
People do not invest any less effort in their important relationships just because they have a large number of less important connections on platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. If anything social media enhances relationships, providing an additional conversation channel between friends and family that can be used to connect when they are apart.
Facebook enables me to maintain a constant, low level of conversation with those close to me throughout my working week. I don’t have time to write emails or have IM conversations with all of my friends and family over the course of a week, but with a few status updates here and there we are able to communicate casually when we are not spending time together.
Looking beyond the stronger relationships, Facebook makes it easier to stay in contact with people who might otherwise have drifted away. Colleagues from old jobs, friends and relatives who move far away, with the best will in the world, you struggle to stay in touch with some people because of the practicalities of everyday life.
The relationships with those people may be weak, but at least the connection is maintained rather than being completely severed. And the same is true of channels like Twitter and LinkedIn. The relationships I have on those platforms are mostly with colleagues, professional acquaintances or simply people who share the same interests as me. These relationships are mostly low value, but it takes very little effort for me to maintain them, and the level of effort required does not significantly increase when the number of relationships rises.
Low value relationships are fine, so long as they come at low cost
This brings me onto my key point: the reason social media enables us to vastly increase the number of weak relationships is because tools like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn significantly reduce the level of effort involved in maintaining those relationships.
Most of those relationships are of low value, but under the right circumstances any of them could evolve into a much more valuable relationship; they might be able to help me with a problem, give me a great idea, or lead to a solid business opportunity. The ‘opportunity cost’ (i.e. the time and effort I have to expend in maintaining them) is so low as to make it more than worthwhile for me.
Umair argues further that the ultimate proof of the true worthlessness of social media relationships is that nobody is willing to pay for them. This point is hard to counter, but I think it’s fair to say that just because it is hard to monetise something, that doesn’t necessarily mean that it has no value – the internet is full of good things that are not particularly profitable, high quality news journalism being a good case in point.
This entry was posted on Sunday, March 28th, 2010 at 11:18 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
March 29th, 2010 at 9:14 am
Your social media scenario is very even keel and idyllic. In reality many people are addicted to social media and feel the need to check on meaningless updates/conversations constantly. And yes it does take a toll on important relationships. I’ve watched people come home after work and try to “multitask” between their twitter/facebook world and spending “quality time” with their kids. It’s pitiful and just like addicts they deny, deny, deny. The social media world is always on their minds and they can’t wait to sit in front of the computer all night. The iPhone is always on hand making social media omnipresent and a powerful competitor for their attention at all times. You’ll definitely maintain your weak relationships, but it does take time and effort. (And facebook always wants you to add more “friends”). The ever-growing time we spend on social media is time NOT spent on your important relationships because there is a very limited amount of time we have to spend with our loved ones. Social media is like junk food or cocaine, it taps into our addictiveness making it hard to be disciplined about its consumption. I agree with Umair on this one.
March 29th, 2010 at 10:49 am
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March 29th, 2010 at 1:16 pm
Interesting comments.
I think personally for me social media enables a business to introduce its product or service to a huge variety of different people for little or no cost.
However, then you have to go through the process of building a relationship through the normal channels.
As long as you treat social media as just that I don’t see that you would devalue your relationships.
Interesting article and one which I have tweeted to my social network!!!
March 29th, 2010 at 6:09 pm
I think being personal is now being defined as being friends on social media sites. Social media sites are great for keeping in touch with old friends, general business contacts and associates. But the rate at which organizations are commercializing social media (specifically facebook) it is very annoying. Spams from groups, requests for using Farmville and not to forget the annoying and unnecessary tests for various different activities like “how will you die?”.
I guess my issue is more with the way companies are saturating the profile page of a user, forgetting that it is infact his/her profile and not their platform for advertising. Where on one side the site claims to give you a “personalized” page, it also creates a new window to throw the same advertisements that it had displayed on every other site of the user. Moral: I feel devalued as a user. Perhaps, social media should investigate more into that.
As a graduate student, it is always good to know the program schedules and events of various activities on campus. Its always nice to argue and answer questions on linkedin and its great to have this discussion. As a professional it is yet another front to manage your identity online. Not that I dont enjoy it, but it is arduous and very unnecessary. Moreover, the system makes a series of assumptions because of my profile page: 1. I would like to hear about deals related to a specific product that i liked. 2. I would like to always know what products my friends like 3. I would be willing to buy their product cause i mentioned them on my ID.
My problem with their assumptions: 1. My internet identity is not your opportunity for sale, it is my opportunity to build contacts, 2. If my friends like using a product, it does not mean that i would be interested in it too. 3. Interest, liking and involvement are three different concepts, the fact that i mentioned the product only means that i am interested in it, if i was involved in a product amazon.com would be more aware of it than FB or Orkut. Cause that’s where i like to engage in being the consumer.
Lastly, internet identity has become a great platform for learning more about people- this is great. Expect based on the degree of trust, you would prefer to not reveal certain aspects of your personality. At any given point if you choose to search your full name and last name on google, the most revealing sites of your identity are social media sites. Which would be great expect, when i am sitting for an interview for a job and some one has seen even the basic information about me online, i would be uncomfortable. ex i wouldn’t want an employer or an employee to know that i like Led Zepplin, before they learn that i wrote a paper on market research that was published.
Through social media companies seem to battle for consumer, they dont necessarily captivate or involve consumers. This is what makes them less desirable.
March 29th, 2010 at 6:46 pm
Your point about the low cost of social media is right on, just drop this point re: “yuou would have to assume that we have a strictly limited amount of attention to devote to relationships, and that every new relationship you participate in somehow degrades the value of all of your other relationships.’
Hard to argue your way out of “attention is zero sum”
March 31st, 2010 at 2:02 pm
Actually, attention is limited by the way our brain works (just google “monkeysphere”). Keeping track of people as quasi online address book is not the same as real attention; I guess the missnomer is mostly in the word “friend” here where “casual acquaintance” would be more appropriate.
The journalism example in your last paragraph actually goes to Umair’s point: I _am_ willing to pay for high quality journalism, online or offline, but would not pay a cent for Facebook etc. Value is subjective, but the fact whether somebody is willing to pay for something is a strong indicator of its value to the person. For many people, high quality journalism (sadly) has no or little value either…
March 31st, 2010 at 2:26 pm
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