On Ambient Knowledge and the Efficacy of Socializing Online

by Nick Purdy

In general, I'm on the late end of the early adopter spectrum. So I'm aware of new-ish trends particularly in technology and media, but usually watch curiously for some level of critical mass before investing time or money to participate. For a couple years, I've been happily among the millions now participating in the use of web-based social networking tools - Twitter, Facebook and the like. You know the story - users tend to love these tools while nonusers sniff that they are "time-wasters" or just "noise." Who would want to know the silly or mundane things you learn on Facebook and Twitter? Who's got the time or interest to be bothered with such trivialities, right?

That's absurd.

I've always imagined that one of the upsides of heaven is that the limits for interacting with people I know or love or in whom I'm interested simply don't exist. We Americans move repeatedly over our lifetimes from place to place and make relationships and then those relationships fade away as we move away. Who among us considers this ideal? Don't we all have any number of friends we wish we could spend more time with? Or experts we know we could learn from? Wise people to whom we just want to listen?

Facebook creates a digital web of connections mirroring, as its founder Mark Zuckerberg calls it, "your social graph". Twitter offers direct access to unfiltered thoughts from virtually anyone. I've always described Facebook to skeptics as like a never ending cocktail party with all my friends and, importantly, only all my friends. Twitter of course, is that constantly percolating sea of everything, it's value maximized by your own curation. Follow what you're interested in, ignore the rest.

Yet many still reject these tools, appealing either to personal preference or nearly moralist judgment that this type of communication is inferior. My friend Chris Huertz even imagines Mother Teresa reminding us that "digital relationships and virtual communities can never be an authentic proxy for human interaction."

Which brings me to my point - there's a value here that is worth recognizing and which may broaden the appeal of online socializing. In 2007, a user experience designer named Leisa Reichelt wrote a blog post about an idea she dubbed "ambient intimacy." Her definition addresses specifically my hope for heaven noted above: "Ambient intimacy is about being able to keep in touch with people with a level of regularity and intimacy that you wouldn't usually have access to, because time and space conspire to make it impossible." (italics mine)

I find this concept very energizing and a perfect explanation for what I like most about online social interactions. While this ambient intimacy has value as an end in itself the surprising benefit is that my "real life" relationships have been enhanced. In just the past week I've had the chance to see a number of friends (and professional acquaintances that may yet become friends) that I haven't seen lately - and in each case, conversation flowed even more easily simply due to my "ambient" knowledge of generally what they'd been up to.

Ambient knowledge is by nature incomplete - and that's ok. It's not about obsessing and keeping up with every post, every status update or every set of vacation photos. It is about more connections yielding deeper connections. Quantity yielding quality. And who wouldn't want that?

Comments

Will Hinton

Excellent article Nick. I would carry that thought further and suggest that virtual/online "community" can be used to facilitate true authentic offline community if one is purposeful about it.

Kevin Keller

I think you've really nailed an idea here, Nick. I have been thinking about this idea as it relates to my forthcoming high school reunions. Having graduated in 2002, many of my former classmates have kept up with one another since graduation day using online networking--first through sites like livejournal, then myspace, and now facebook. The result of our connection is that we will certainly have fewer surprises when it comes time for the ten year reunion. I think this is going to be wonderful. For one, it cuts down on the salacious element of a reunion. We already know who has a great job and who doesn't, and thanks to the picture galleries we already know who got fat and who looks better than ever. My hope is that when it comes time for us to gather together, instead of asking the "getting reacquainted" questions, we can choose to talk about more substantive matters. I hope we do.

Josh Jackson

I think that's the important thing to remember—social media isn't a replacement for actual relationships, but it can certainly enhance them. I ran into a friend for the first time in months recently, and instead of playing catch-up, we could dig deeper into what was going on in each other's lives because we'd been keeping up.

Jimmy Locklear

One of the things I resonate with Nick on is the potential for suffering loss as a result of living in a transient society. We live and/or work in a place for a while and then we move on. A few years ago, i had lunch with the same 3-4 people every day. We worked together and broke bread together. Two of those folks I never talk to or see and I'm miss knowing them. The other two I relate to often via Facebook and Twitter. So, there is a sense in which social media and the prospect of "ambient intimacy" should reduce our fears in investing in what we previously would've written off as "short-term relationships." So, even from a strategic perspective for investing in people's lives, the knowledge that we can leverage social media to maintain and grow a friendship gives us greater hope to take that awkward step Rosie Thomas sings about and say, "Hello."

Billy Cerveny

Good. First thoughtful apology I've read for Facebook/Twitter. Yes...most posts are mundane posts, but when we are dealing with people we love (and that we often aren't seeing on a day to day basis), it is the mundane that you are interested in a lot of the time. Keeps you in the proverbial loop of their life. Well done.

Michael Dunaway

Great post. Another useful aspect of Facebook is the perception of casualness and play that's developed around the site. Spending time on Facebook seems light and low-impact, and therefore accepting someone's friend request on Facebook seems like an action that will cost little of one's time/fun capital. But once the bond is there, it does weave lives closer together. It's the same reason it's easier to engage someone at a party leaning against a kitchen cabinet than sitting on a couch.

I wouldn't want all (or even most) of anyone's social interaction to be via Facebook, or via email, or via phone calls, but each of those technologies have their own strengthsand provide new avenues towards making and maintaining real connections.

Trent McEntyre

I have a question for Nick or others. If we think of social networking the way Nick has proposed, then what does "good" (in the broad kingdom of God sense of the word) facebooking look like? My wife is mainly a facebook listener. She got mad when I accidently made a status update on her profile from our computer. I have a dozen or so friends who update their status several times a day..."just watched the Dawgs get destroyed by UT...I'm tired and heading to bed...baby Josie woke me up at 4 am..."

Nick, I really like the analogy you made between social networking and heaven. It is not right that some of my best friends and family are separated from me by so many miles. Life is messed up economically so people have to move away. Life is messed up spiritually so we experience distance between us and God who will ultimately reunite us with one another. In a small but real way you can see things like facebook pointing to the future life on a new earth where these separations are fixed.

Andy O'Neil

Thank you for your comments regarding the use of Twitter...

"Twitter of course, is that constantly percolating sea of everything, it's value maximized by your own curation. Follow what you're interested in, ignore the rest."

A coworker of mine insists there is a right and wrong way to use Twitter, black and white. The "right" way of utilizing Twitter for instance is the way people seem to be interested in the daily musings of someone like Ashton Kutcher spilling mustard on himself. On the flip-side, the "wrong" way to use Twitter would be to promoting (even self-promoting) a blog or a product. I contend that as a user I can follow who I want to follow, and my usage of Twitter is no less right or more wrong than the way another person consumes the social medium.

People who follow Ashton for his daily nonsense (sorry, my bias is showing) are using Twitter equally as appropriately as those who follow Twitterers who talk about blog posts, and even their own products. They choose to follow who they want, and can ignore who they want...I just choose to ignore Ashton.

Great post! Thank You!

Lisa Zirkle

Excellent article.

James Cain

Thanks for this thoughtful exploration of social media and its effects on us. An article by Christine Rosen in The New Atlantis started me down this road a year or so ago, and I'm still sorting through the "meaning of Facebook."

I have been a reluctant (even guilty) FB'er--enjoying my connections with friends old and new, but uneasy about the flow of randomness and about the possible effects of virtual friendships on face-to-face ones. As with so many recent technologies, we adopted early, without considering the ramifications of our use of FB and other social media.

One development in my own Facebook experience has given me more food for thought. I have noticed recently how many status updates unintentionally move beyond the surface, that betray deep feelings. I've begun to see those updates as communiques from the frontier, PostSecret without the Secret. If I refuse to allow the status of friends to become "noise," if I really pay attention, my real-world relationships will be stronger for our online interaction. Awareness seems to be an important key to using social media rightly.

Paul Miller

The dialogue on this issue is exciting, and the ramifications are exhilarating. I am watching an emerging generation in my little corner of the world in Japan that is expressing its ideas in sound-bites and pithy observations rather than in carefully thought out, and sometimes drawn out, logic. I observe more emoting than thinking, more brevity than depth. There are also a number who create an online persona that acts and responds very differently than the in-class or at-school persona. More than ever, as a teacher, I sense I am called to be a mentor for both kinds of these relationships, for the students that go online to engage in facebook repartee and those who sit, almost sullen, with thoughts that they need to learn to express with a generous freedom that allows them to be honest, but I struggle with how "honest" they should be. It is surprising how actively conversant my students are online, but remarkably silent with others around them.

David Adler

Good points all, I guess some of my concerns around FB is the feeling I often get that everyone else is more cleaver and interesting than I am, lots of one up man ship, can feel alot like high school all over again.

The conspiricy theory side of me worries that social media will at some point be used by the government to control and track us, 1984 for reals