I would like to ask why we write in our status message of the social networks. It is so often subject of debate or warning articles on important newspapers, because it could be dangerous. I think it is quite obvious that we should not put there our bank account number. You can also go a bit further than that and admit that even locating yourself very far from your apartment is not incredibly safe if someone is just waiting for that to break in - there have been some cases for instance with Twitter users and their status messages, intercepted by thieves.
But why do people actually post anything might pass through their heads in a status message?
I did not find so many answers: to give some information (help, news...), to spend some time with some games, or to try to catch the attention of their "friends". I have to use the quotes, as I can't believe that all contacts (yes, well, let's call them like this) on their social network account are actually friends. But I do believe that some of them might be quite close to us, and we would like to inform all of them about what just happened, and we are too lazy and busy to write all of them a descriptive email. Probably, an email would probably be kind of too self-centric. Maybe they did not want at all to know about us, rather they would like to speak about themselves and their lives. Also, an email imply an at least as demanding answer. Is it noch much simpler just to click on "Like" or comment with "What happened?". If we post a new event of our life in a status of the social network, we are making it simpler for everyone to look interested to... well, us.
This might be the point. The whole story is only about to get some attention and some reactions from our contact, or at least from our closest friends. But, after all this implicit thinking of how much better it is to post something instead of writing an email, here is what normally happens: in the first 5 minutes, two of the closest friends, casually online, will contact you in some private way to actually hear your voice or have a resembling conversation about what happened and how you are. After that, nothing. The status message got sunk by all other posted pictures, game scores and breaking news, which are much more eye-catching than a miserable text line.
And then, casually, few days later, you have some conversation with other closest friends, who ask you about any news and then say: "What? And you did not tell me?".
The sarcastic point of all this is, we consider ourselves important enough to gain some attention on a social network, but not important enough to actually communicate in a maybe more proper way what we want to say, at least to the closest friends. It almost seems like a few "Like" in a status message are more socially rewarding than a long phone call or emails, where the facts are discussed, analyzed, looked at with different perspectives. Those could allow us to learn something, whilst the "Like" will be covered by tons of other messages within few hours, and disappear.
But why do people actually post anything might pass through their heads in a status message?
I did not find so many answers: to give some information (help, news...), to spend some time with some games, or to try to catch the attention of their "friends". I have to use the quotes, as I can't believe that all contacts (yes, well, let's call them like this) on their social network account are actually friends. But I do believe that some of them might be quite close to us, and we would like to inform all of them about what just happened, and we are too lazy and busy to write all of them a descriptive email. Probably, an email would probably be kind of too self-centric. Maybe they did not want at all to know about us, rather they would like to speak about themselves and their lives. Also, an email imply an at least as demanding answer. Is it noch much simpler just to click on "Like" or comment with "What happened?". If we post a new event of our life in a status of the social network, we are making it simpler for everyone to look interested to... well, us.
This might be the point. The whole story is only about to get some attention and some reactions from our contact, or at least from our closest friends. But, after all this implicit thinking of how much better it is to post something instead of writing an email, here is what normally happens: in the first 5 minutes, two of the closest friends, casually online, will contact you in some private way to actually hear your voice or have a resembling conversation about what happened and how you are. After that, nothing. The status message got sunk by all other posted pictures, game scores and breaking news, which are much more eye-catching than a miserable text line.
And then, casually, few days later, you have some conversation with other closest friends, who ask you about any news and then say: "What? And you did not tell me?".
The sarcastic point of all this is, we consider ourselves important enough to gain some attention on a social network, but not important enough to actually communicate in a maybe more proper way what we want to say, at least to the closest friends. It almost seems like a few "Like" in a status message are more socially rewarding than a long phone call or emails, where the facts are discussed, analyzed, looked at with different perspectives. Those could allow us to learn something, whilst the "Like" will be covered by tons of other messages within few hours, and disappear.
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