I'm lonesome. This
morning I woke up to thirty messages in my e-mail inbox and not one of them was
from a real person. At least not
directly.
It's my fault. In
some kind of a crazed feeding frenzy, I signed up for each of those messages at
one time or another. But instead of
appeasing my appetite, they've just made me hungrier. Why? Maybe it's because they don't
have what I'm really hungry for.
I'm hungry for the social, but I'm only finding the
media.
I'm beginning to realize that social media only provides the
kind of interaction I might find by myself at a bar in a strange town. The bar is full of interesting people, for
sure, but the noise level is so high, and the smell of stale alcohol so strong,
that I can't really focus on any one person and get to know them in a
meaningful way.
When I do start a conversation, I often discover the person
at the other end of the interaction is only there to hook up with someone for
the evening. Their immediate, baser personal
hungers are driving the relationship.
Whoa. Wait a
minute. I'm there for the same
reason. No wonder I'm not finding my
hunger satisfied in this place.
So where do I go from here?
How do I extract myself from this stinky bar and find real relationships
with real people?
Here's a plan, a quick
"to do" list. I'm not
promising anyone, including myself, that it's going to work any better than my
New Year's resolutions do. But at least
it's a start.
I will:
1. Unsubscribe from
impersonal sites. Leave only connections
directly related to people I have met face-to-face or at least communicated
personally with via some kind of electronic avenue.
2. Communicate
personally with those I leave on my subscription list. Comment on their posts, or tweet to them, or
e-mail, always with something significant and specific to say about their
messages.
3. Tweet meaningfully. I will send a personal
tweet message to everyone who "follows" me on Twitter, asking them to
explain why they followed and and give me some personal information. I've actually already begun
doing this and it's revealing. The
responses I get are fascinating, and if I don't get a personal response, with a
tidbit of personal information in it, I don't follow back.
4. Forget about
Marketing. Yes, I mean that. I need to give up the idea of promoting my
book on social media. If people discover
Zinovy's Journey through my social media connections, it will have to be a
natural and unpremeditated occurrence.
5. Pray that
God will direct my steps. I will trust
the Holy Spirit to be my social secretary.
I will make sure my spirit is in tune with the Spirit of Jesus, and then I will
interact, personally and honestly, only with connections I feel drawn to.
Already I'm struggling with this process. I just went to my inbox and successfully
unsubscribed from three connections, but then I got to my daily Twitter message,
telling me who I might like to follow, and ended up signing on to yet another
irresistible blog.
Sigh. Three steps
forward and one backward. But I did
comment on that blog post, and it felt a lot more satisfying than simply
signing up. And I'm not giving up on this idea. I'm going to plug away at the process, living and learning, looking for meaningful relationships in the maze of social media.
