Social Lurkers & Social Bigmouths

“Well, this one is very backward. He’s still on Hotmail, which he checks once a day, I had to explain what del.icio.us was, he has an ancient and cracked Motorola phone – ”
“That’s all right”
“He’s not even on Facebook”
Pause
“Oh.”

Modern technology is a wonderful thing. Having iPhones and Android phones, sending Twitter updates, keeping tabs on Facebook friends, sending text messages across the globe, read blogs, watching videos produced by our friends… and more. I’ve been saying recently that it’s a lot harder not to produce digital content. Everyone has something to say, whether it’s complaining about the weather, commenting on a video of cats playing the piano, or sharing latest market research results with your network via Twitter. Or whatever.

But despite all of the above, there is that occasional strange person who not only doesn’t update their profile, but doesn’t have obvious social network accounts. (K, I can understand that, life happens, you get busy, or you don’t reach out to people as much, but definitely get back to them, or whatever the situation may be. Depending on your profession, I am lenient, of course, and accepting of everyone’s story).

(the visualization of one of my social networks)

I am wary of people who have nothing to show for their online activity. “I don’t want people from the past contacting me.” OK, look up privacy settings on Facebook, you can become as invisible as you like. “I don’t want people to be able to find me.” OK, lurker, also privacy settings, and maybe don’t allow people to post on your wall. “It’s all boring to read.” Your friends are boring? Not even remotely interested in what’s happening? (I get bored with FB too, but I just don’t check it on the weekend and my love returns.) On a basic level, not even interested in coming to the birthday party that you were invited to by your friends?

Whatever the reason, I am wary of people who have nothing listed on their social network profiles, or who don’t even have one. In today’s day and age and the tech-future, it’s scary to see dinosaurs out there.

In my readings on social capital, social benefits of the internet and super-connected people, (namely the Don Tapscott research) I learned something interesting.

First, as per Robert Putnam, social capital is the collective value of all social networks, and the inclinations that arise from these networks to do things for each other.

Second, people who are active in online social networks (Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, etc) are more likely to be active offline compared to people who aren’t active online. People who are active are more likely to generate substantial amounts of social capital. I like people who are active, who have a big network of friends and acquaintances, who get out there, who are connected to the world. That’s a big part of my personality and I would like to be with like-minded folks.

Takeaway: Next time you meet someone who doesn’t have a social networking profile, or disses all social networks, takes pride in his or her archaic habits, consider few things: 1) this person may be a lurking/secretive/paranoid creep (the first person I met this year was exactly that; I was puzzled); 2) this person may have very little or no social life (I know the last person was like that), thus, are you willing to fill out his/her calendar for him or, worse, fight him off when you want to have the evening to yourself; 3) on the other hand, he or she won’t know what you’re up to or how you’re feeling about them because they can’t see your updates. But blatantly complaining is not recommended