Digital Friends - There are no more strangers
I have written many articles on how important it is to build a reputation on social media platforms. In my post last week - Netocracy - New beginnings - Are you ready I even showed that we all have the chance to start over and build a new reputation from scratch without having this reputation linked to anything we have done during our lives. It is our choice who we want to be.
During the process of building a reputation on this platform, I made wonderful new friends and hope to make many more friends from all over the world. The most amazing thing which I recently picked up is that when you speak to anybody on the platform, you do not even know if they are male or female.
For example, if you speak to somebody using their steemit name, like @serioustruth, @steemist, @liberosist, @kyriacos or whatever you’re the steemit handle might be, there is no personal information available about the person on the other side. You do not know, which country they are from, which race, which gender, age or nothing more than the name that they chose. We can now choose our online friends based on our own topic of interests. We can actually meet like-minded people and make friends.
I find this very exciting and fascinating as many of the day-to-day problems we face, are not even part of the equation. I mean stuff like feminism or racism, are just a two of the things, that will not exist for quite some time on this platform as a result, as this is not considered in the response. You are just typing a message to another digital friend, somewhere in the world. We are speaking with our digital personalities if I can call it that. In one of the comments of my Netocracy post, @onetree mentioned that his digital personality is exactly the same as his real life personality. I hope that most of us are like this as well :)
I read a few studies about online communication and found a few interesting facts which I would like to share:
There are no more strangers
Image Source
Long ago, before there was even a term like marketing coined, we had a very limited source of information. People's lives were limited to the places they stayed and their surroundings. Then came things like Radio, TV and mass media exploded. These new media's has created the ability of exposure beyond the normal media things like newspapers etc.
It was however still a professional top down approach … as in the early days of radio and TV, there wasn't things like phone in conversations.
Influence Economy
The beginning of a revolution, and in the early days things like bulletin boards and Chat rooms like ICU was the norm. The web evolved and we blogging, Social Networks, photo and video sharing are the norm. Where we are now is that the web are driven by the people and users. They are able to share their thoughts and it is increasingly easier to share our opinions. More importantly we are cultivating our ability to influence. In my opinion, it might be the democratisation of influence without even trying to do so. I am busy writing an article about The influence economy, which will be done in the next day or so, please follow me should you be interested to read.
Never before have we had so many sources of influence, most of the influencers are actually complete strangers. The result is there for an influence economy, which is a very good thing as it forces transparency, openness and honesty about our products and people as we are the products in the Steemit case for that manner.
The study I read, which had involvement from 29 countries, believe that in the new influencer landscape, there are 5 fundamental aspects that needs t be acknowledged.
We now have digital friends as well.
We can have friends across the world, and we do not have to have face to face relationships.
Anyone can be influenced by anyone
There are no strangers anymore, we will probably trust anybody just as much as we trust our closer friends
New super influencers will rise above the masses
Not all influencers are equal, maybe I should use the statement, that all influencers are equal but some are more equal than others.
Everybody is now an influencer
Our lives are not based on the old top down influencing. We all have the ability to influence, not only the experts. We all have a say.
The influencer ecosystem has permanently changed
There is a new level of trust and truth. Although we each have a new reputation, we should not lose this reputation. Be honest, open and truthful…
As I am using blogging as a primary medium of communication with my new digital friends, I thought the stats below will be a good indication on how people from around the world see the importance of blogging and social network.
Final Thought
We have a saying here that [Insert friend name here] is really a good friend as I can call him anytime in the middle of the night or even 03:00 in the morning when I have a flat tire. I know he will come to help. My question to you:
What will the new question or statement be in the digital friendship world?
I am sure @omfedor is a good friend, but he will be a bit pissed off when I phone him at 03:00 in the morning to come and help me to fix my tire as he lives in Russia and I live in South Africa.
Happy Steeming
Study Source - Universal McCann
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Oh, your post is really amazing! You talk about relationships and friendships and responsibilities and about reputation. All this things are really important for our real life and off course in our life here, on aboard of platform.
I agree that every one of us has a good chance to become the better copy of himself. It is like to start from zero.😕
I think if we want to continue our relationship in real life we ought to meet up and talk alive. That's why i helped to @omfedor in organization of 1st meetup in russia.
But everything begins here. And it's a wonderful! 😄
I hope that I will actually meet the friends I make on here in person. I know it will not be possible to meet everybody, but there are definitely ways and means to meet some of them. I am looking to arrange an international meetup and hope to invite many friends that I have met on the platform. Watch this space. Thank you for your comment.
I was actually thinking about the fact that I hope Steemit does not use profile pictures. It is amazing that we can be ourselves, in a community that I have found mostly supportive. (except for the @#$% who flagged a gif I posted in SUPPORT of his post.)
We are not judged by gender (in my case @jacor ;) ), race, looks, weight, or the clothing we wear. What a beautiful way for society to move forward.
It is indeed a beautiful way. As you know growing up in South Africa, forced society to look at people based on many things which were not required. I love this platform :)
I agree with what you say! What I use to do in steemit chat is trying to understand where the person is chatting with me is from! Different culture, different languages and way to build a phrase are always interesting. In the past I went out with people met online... public chats or social media! In UK is not completely easy make friendship if you are not British so there are so many apps for smartphone that I was using :D
Now I got a girlfriend since 2 years and the only socialmedia I am using is steemit!
Yup indeed. I lived in the UK myself for a few years and also found it difficult to make friends at first being from anther country. I must say that I still have very good friends in the UK. They are a great bunch of people when they accept you eventually! Innit?
ahahahha yes man! innit is so british ahhha especially from essex
"There are no more strangers" -- that sums about everything related to social media, as of the present. We can derive some comfort that even in anonymity, our whole identities can be derived from how we post or how we interact. This is something that's not widely talked about, and I'm glad that you brought this to the conversation. It's a pretty fascinating world we live in today. "Globalization" has evolved so much that we're hanging out with people who are miles apart from us. This post is very well written, and it's already achieving the monetary success it deserves. With amazing posts like this, I never regret following you. Keep it up!
This is a really great comment to receive. Thank you @jedau for following me. I also fully agree that everything related to social media is summarized by that one statement. Hope to chat soon again!
Oh, hey, that's been my mission for a few weeks now--to leave awesome comments to get people motivated. I appreciate you appreciating it!
@jedau you are doing a great job. Everybody has there on role to fulfill here ion Steemit. Just followed you :)
Thanks, man! Looking forward to more of your posts!
It's certainly a brave new world. I have made many online friends, some of who I have never physically met and never will. Perhaps the statement will be 'X will support me and help leverage my online rep no matter what'. Having said that human nature doesn't really ever change that much...a new world brings new challenges as well as rewards :-)
Yes, we are always evolving . Love your statement ...a new world brings new challenges as well as rewards :-)
It's the Brave New World, and perhaps Steemit will help lead the way.
Yup, all we can do is wait and see!
I agree, and play our part making Steemit a great resource, and place to be.
This is a great story, Thank You.
I love how open people are with their posts on Steemit, maybe its the lack of profile pic?
I see and read so many stories that are much more from the heart, or generous in their nature on here than on any other community platform I've every been part of. (y)
@stephen-somers , I agree with he profile pic. We should not have one as I believe the moment this happens, a lot of aspects which is not in play now will be part of the game. Let's not change this.
First let me say that I really appreciate your work, even if I do not get the free time to comment on it as much as I wish.
I do not think before this platform that I truly valued people for what they contributed. I would write people off based on looks, perceived intelligence, status etc.
I've met so many interesting people from all walks of life here and see value in everyone. Even those who come across as quite negative.
I kind of liken it to the way animals and children view the world. They don't love because this person has more money or is prettier etc. They value people because people are fun. All people, not just the ones who can speak well or dunk a basketball or pack stadiums to hear them sing.
I've seen many interesting views and posts from people I probably would have tuned out, because I was not being a very good example of unconditional love. I really value the conversations I've had here on steemit.
I do not think there is very much racism, but there are some signs of disrespect aimed at certain people. I love that the reputation system lets those who decide to post negative comments whether they want to have their voice heard. If they don't care and want to spout off anything that comes to mind, steemit hands them their superpower. Invisibility. I've never seen a better platform that has kept out more trolls and provided better comment sections. I mean getting paid for thoughtful/helpful/creative comments? I've made hundreds doing just that and trying to help people with formatting or constructive criticism.
@bendjmiller222, thank you very much for all the comments that you have made on my articles as well as many other people. I have seen your comments everywhere and they always add value. You can see that you actually take time to read the articles which many people don't do. It became very clear to me that when I feature authors, some of the comments is directed at me and not the actual author of the article. For me it is clear that they do not even read the full title. Yon on the other hand really take time to read the detail and comment on that detail. I really appreciate this ! Thank you very much. Chat soon!
Absolutely. dm me on steemit chat when you get the free time to do so please. ( bendjmiller222 )
My new digital friends will come to help me when I get flag bombed.
LOL , Now that is a good idea!