The impact of online networks to offline relationships

18 December, 2009

• offline relationships
• online networks

Letitia Power

Category: Social Media

Surprise, surprise; results from a Crowd Science survey reveal social media users want to be heard! I thought humans in general liked to be heard, at least to be given attention anyway. In fact I don't know of anyone that doesn't  like being noticed, do you?

45% of the Crowd Science Respondents indicate they like being noticed on social media. 36% believed that others are simply interested in what they have to say.

Other interesting results from the survey indicate that women are more than three times likely to say online social media was their favourite leisure activity.

What does this mean for the longevity of offline networking and relationships?

It's funny, the other night I actually had a dream that the only way humans communicated was through skype....weird I know. Basically the dream involved me walking around with my thoughts popping up like a cartoon speech bubbles. Huh I didn't even have to say anything and there my thoughts were in clear daylight. Ok so my point is, what will happen to face-to-face communication?

I don't know about you, but I meet up with friends now, the typical "catch-up" and don't really have anything to say as I feel like I've been updated/overloaded with their life through Facebook, Tweets etc etc.

This Crowd Science survey also indicated that face-to-face contact with friends is still the preferred medium for contact; with one third of respondents rather communicating via social media than by phone.

Does social media communication have the same personal values of face-to-face? Does a message whether it be a hug, an apology or a thank you via social media have the same impact as a face-to-face one?

So what's your preferred medium for contact? Face to face will always be mine.

Source URL
http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1007424