personal twitter anecdote.

People complain regularly that social media is just another way of commodifying personal relationships, turning friendship into a score and social bonds into bragging rights.  I'm sure for some people this is true, but due to some circumstances of my life and friendships, I can't agree with it for a second.

My mother returned from a short trip to Washington, DC earlier this evening.  She'd been sick the night before, and was complaining of tingling in her extremities, a general feeling of weakness, and nausea.  Obviously, I took her to the emergency room.

In the waiting area (which is a cell-phone friendly zone, don't berate me in the comments) I posted my location and situation to Twitter.  In the next 20 minutes, the following things happened:

• @replies showed up from my girlfriend, as well as a good friend in town, and a friend who currently lives in Los Angeles.
• The aforementioned local good friend called to check in on me, and make sure that my mother was doing well.  He also offered to stop by, and get me anything I may need, despite repeated assurances that the situation wasn't serious.
• My girlfriend called, checking on me, and offering to come wait with me (about a 30 minute drive for her), again despite there not being anything major to worry about.

The main thing to take from this is yes; the people in my life are really, really wonderful.  But it's also important to note that part of my standard operating procedure - posting my events / mindset via Twitter - resulted in the support system I've established in my life, reaching out to help me.

The benevolence of social networks has been an issue recently, highlighted in David Armano's very successful attempt to help someone out by tapping into the Twitter community.

This isn't related to that, or a commentary on that.  But I think it's worth pointing out that my meatspace social network, and real life connections, reached out to me entirely based on a fairly mild Twitter update.

Right now, I'm fairly certain that my social life and social connections are optimized by services like Twitter, not undermined by them.

Oh, and it was a false alarm.  My mother is in good shape, but better safe than sorry.