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.

staring into the generation chasm.

I had lunch with my father on monday, which was a nice surprise, and a good conversation. We talked about a good many things, but focused mostly (shockingly enough) on media and advocacy campaigns, all in relation to discussions of my future. That, and my complete lack of prospects thus far for employment this summer. (Hint. Hint.)

He asked me what steps I was taking to 'get my ideas out there', and so I mentioned this blog to him, and filed away the (fairly obvious) good advice that I had somehow glossed over in the past. I finally got around to doing something about it today, nothing notable, just editing and fleshing out my LinkedIn and Emurse accounts, so that they actually show useful information, and attempt to explain why listening to me, talking to me, networking with me, etc, is of any value.

What was interesting was porting my contacts into LinkedIn, and finding out that my father had an account. It was fairly demonstrably one of those things that he had tried either on the suggestion of a colleague or friend (I actually have a few guesses on who) and then abandoned almost instantly. There was almost no information, excepting industry, name, job title and employer. And almost all of that was out of date.

There are a lot of possible reasons for this, and almost all of them are generational differences that I need to put effort into noticing. The first option is just differing stances on relevance for a service like LinkedIn. I could see someone of his generation assuming that basic business care information (sans real world contact info) was sufficient, or even more likely, that such a service has no real use, and then treating it as such.

Another possibility is the issue of privacy. I have no problem having a recent employment history available for all to see, because I assume that a little artful googling will track me down just as surely, and I want the control as to how the information is presented. I know my father well enough to assume that having that information sitting out there would make him uncomfortable. And I can understand why, his generation and that of my grandparents cherished privacy in a way that seems baffling today.

But looking at his profile, three or four outdated lines, I couldn't help but wonder how many middle aged, incredibly experienced and talented people, are completely invisible or misidentified online. How many people I should really be learning from have no real desire to be found? How many of them don't consider such things an opportunity, but instead an imposition?

I found myself, this afternoon, staring into the generation chasm, because gap makes me think of differences in popular culture, attitudes towards nudity in film, conservative approaches to alternative lifestyles, etc. The generation gap, as a label, makes it seem almost cute, and inherently comical. Like when my parents criticize the music I listen to, or the TV I watch. This seems larger, because it has created a gap in communication at what is becoming an inherent layer. And it's happening within the wider group that makes up the engine of society.

It's not that we don't understand one another. Now we have generations that can't even see one another. That's something that will take time to plan around.