Drifting Alone On The Social Network

This was not your ordinary Facebook post — if there is such a thing.

For one thing, it was long — almost 1,600 words. That’s longer than this column. Secondly, it was raw. It was written by somebody in deep pain who laid their soul bare for their entire network to see.

I barely knew this person, and I was given a look into the deepest and darkest part of their lives. The post told the story of the breakup of a marriage and a struggle with depression. It was a disturbing blow-by-blow chronicle of someone hitting the bottom.

A strange thing happened while I was reading the post. At one level, I responded as I hope any decent human would. I felt the pain of this person — even though we were barely acquaintances  — and wanted to help in some way.

Still, in a sort of meta-awareness, I monitored myself as a sample of one to see what the longer-term impact was. This plea through social media seemed extraordinary in a number of ways. What were the possible unintended consequences of this online confessional?

I should add an additional, traumatic, context to this story. This post was catalyzed by the recent suicide of a well-known member of the industry I used to work in. Again, I was made aware of the tragedy through several posts on Facebook. And again, I barely knew the person involved — but somewhere along the line, we had connected through Facebook. In the last two days of his life, he had updated his status.

He was young. He had a family. He should have had everything to live for. But then again, I really didn’t know him or his circumstances. I certainly didn’t know his pain. Judging by the shock in the comments on Facebook, I don’t think any of us knew.

And that’s what prompted this post I’m writing about. Obviously, this person wanted us to know his pain. He was asking for help. But he was also offering it to anyone who needed it.  And he chose to do it through Facebook.

This should be social media at its finest — a moving example of people connecting when it counts most. The post certainly touched those who read it. Eighty comments, all supportive, followed the post. Many contained their own abbreviated confessions of going through similar pain.

All this seemed cathartic. I would even call it inspirational.

So why was I so troubled? Something seemed wrong.

Social Networks are Built on Weak Ties

Perhaps the problem is in the nature of our online social networks. In the 1990s, British anthropologist Robin Dunbar suggested our brains had a cognitive limit on the number of stable social relationships we could maintain. The number was 150, which has since become known as Dunbar’s Number.

In follow-up research released in the last few years, Dunbar has found that within this circle of 150 acquaintances, there are smaller circles of increasingly more intimate friends. The next layer in is what we would probably call “friends”: people we chose to spend time with. That’s about 50 people.  Then we have “close friends,” people we tend to socialize with more frequently. On average, we would have 15 of these. And finally, we have our closest friends – those we are intimately connected to. Dunbar puts our cognitive limit at five for these most precious connections.

I have about 450 “Friends” on Facebook. If Dunbar’s Number is correct, this is three times the number of social connections I can mentally coordinate. By necessity, they’re almost all what Mark Granovetter would refer to as “weak ties”: social connections that are not actively maintained.

And my network is relatively small. Others in the online industry typically have social networks numbering well over 1,000 connections. Yet, with all these thousands of connections, the person who committed suicide — and the one who wrote that intimate post — seemingly didn’t have one of those very close friends they could reach out to in person. Perhaps they did, but the personal investment might have been too high.

The Psychology of the Online Confessional

We all need to be heard. And sometimes, it seems easier to confide in a stranger than a friend. We can talk without worrying about all the baggage we are carrying. Our closest friends know all about that baggage. I think, subconsciously, we sometimes tend to gravitate towards “weak ties” when things are at their worst. It’s the reason psychotherapists and confessional booths exist.

Also, a confession is easier when it’s physically detached from the feedback. We can craft the language before we post. We are not sitting across from someone who might judge us. We are posting alone, and this can bring its own sense of comfort. Unfortunately, that comfort can be short-lived.

The Half-Life of Online Empathy

Eventually, the empathy dies away and the social shaming begins. I wish this wasn’t the case — I wish humans were better than this — but we’re not. We’re just human.

If you’re not an absolute sociopath, you can’t help but be empathetic when someone lays their grieving soul bare for you. And the investment required to post a supportive comment is minimal. It is determined by the same cognitive algorithm I talked about last week regarding “slacktivism.” It’s a few seconds of our life and a handful of carefully selected words.

At the time, we are probably sincere in our offer of help, but then we move on. This is a weak tie, a person we hardly know. We have no skin in the game.

If that seems callous and cruel on my part, there are previous examples to point to. Over and over again, we pour out our support when the pain is fresh, only to move on to the next thing more and more quickly.

This is true when the tragedies are global in nature. I suspect the same is true when they’re more localized, with people we are passingly acquainted with.

And these people have now gone public with their pain. It is now part of their digital footprint. Today, we may feel nothing but empathy. But how will we feel six weeks hence? Or six months? I would like to think we would remain noble, kind and gracious in our thoughts, but most of the evidence points to the contrary.
I didn’t want to be negative in writing this. I sincerely hope that such online pleas for help bring aid and comfort to the person in question. As I said, this was all sparked by someone who never got the help he needed at the right time.

Perhaps a weak tie online is better than no tie at all. But I will remain a strong believer in the power of a true person-to-person connection, with all its messiness and organic imperfection. We need more of those connections.

And the more time we spend alone, keying in our thoughts in front of the light-blue glow of a monitor, the less likely that is to happen.

by Gord Hotchkiss
Courtesy of mediapost