Computers, video games and the web were all at some point labeled as causing people to be more insular and solitary, and less social.  This has now come full circle with people now being more connected and social than ever – but do we actually have more friends? Or are we simply broadening our horizons and networks to include the thousands of ‘acquaintances’ we may RT or @ in our Twitter lifetime? Or share a wall post on a Facebook group trying to get 1 000 000 members so someone will call their child Batman?

A Google search using keywords ‘increase twitter followers’ retrieves approximately 907 000 articles – everyone has a strategy to become more ‘popular’, some are worth reading and embrace the essence of what Twitter is about (see Collective Thoughts) and others, (like Shroom Heat – who blogs in capital letters?!?) are disappointingly shallow.  It seems that social media and web 2.0 tools appeal to the high school student in all of us – wanting to be popular and if possible the most popular – Prom Queen, School Captain, Head Prefect or whatever was the ultimate accolade at your school.  We want to feel accomplishment that we are more successful than the student who was dux and more popular than the football star. Mike Arauz has developed a Spectrum of Online Friendship:

We are not only competing in a popularity contest but judging it too – the ‘Passive Interest’ section or the ‘Big Brother’ column, where we seek out and pursue someone across online spaces but often don’t actually interact -  follow them on Twitter, read their blog, view Flickr images, see what they’ve tagged in their Delicious bookmarks, their professional history on LinkedIn.  We are now all cast in the role of ‘Big Brother’ from 1984 knowing almost everything about a person except their social security number.  The opportunity to monitor one another so closely had not existed until the web 2.0 explosion. There have been multiple reports in the media of people losing their jobs, getting dumped and being evicted due to social media faux pas (primarily on Facebook). Stephen O’Grady considers how he should present his personal  life to ensure it does not interfere with his professional life. Ultimate control is still with us as we decide what we will post but as the professional blends with the personal at an ever increasing rate people will use this information about us.

Our lives in public written by Gavin on Servant of Chaos takes this issue one step further:

The most pervasive aspect of living in an online, socially connected world is not identity –- but the traces of our identity that we leave with every click of the mouse. For every time we visit a website, download a PDF, leave a comment, buy a song or write a blog post, we leave something of ourselves behind.

This also includes all the social networking and web 2.0 tools you have used or signed up for over time and leave your presence on, no matter how small.

Social networking and web 2.0 tools are extremely valuable – both on personal and professional levels but left unchecked we are all Big Brother in a popularity contest.