Signing off Digitally

We live in a digital era where friendships are forged and forgotten at the twiddle of our thumbs. The same newspaper that publishes scientific studies showing how smart phones and technology is altering social side of humans (read as ruining relationships) continues to expand their digital footprint and social media presence. While one set of parents want to prolong the digital innocence of their children and delay their social web graduation, the other set gets an email account and face book account for their unborn babies with a hurry to establish their digital identities. What is happening here? I am missing the obvious and ominous signs?

Define the qualification criteria

A few years ago I analyzed the digital requests that I receive from colleagues, new acquaintances and strangers. Colleagues with whom I work every day and new acquaintances sent me Facebook requests, while strangers with whom I’ve never seen or professional engaged with continue send me LinkedIn requests. Why do these people want connect with me on the digital space? Does engaging on the digital space means blurring lines between colleagues, acquaintances and strangers?

Begin with a purpose

In age where social media following decides your celebrity status, establishing the purpose and communicating it is important to sustain the connection. I rarely send out requests until I am absolutely sure that we needed to stay engaged through digital channel. When some of my friends from the same city send me a FB request, I ruthlessly denied their acceptance. I prefer saving them for a real face-to-face interaction and delay their admission until we moved to different cities. I apply the same principles to requests that I received on LinkedIn. I let my colleague’s requests age and add them when I moved on to another organization and when there is real need and purpose.

Let them earn their stripes

Though I operated on Facebook under an alias, I followed a set of self-made rules to add or delete. During the four years operating under an alias, I never used privacy control nor did I use the delete button often because I made a conscious choice of whom I let in into my digital world. I even told the aspirants that there is a 3 year waiting period to get on my Facebook, just to discourage them from queuing up and weed out the fake ones (inspired by Michael Porters Marketing Model Framework). I prefer letting people earn their stripes just as my grandmother selectively relaxes the entry rules to her kitchen.

More control, less troll

It is important that we control our interactions and engagements to make them mutually meaningful in the social media maze. I used social media to inform my dear ones (only 35) on my whereabouts and the amazing discoveries I made during my trips, I shared images of what I baked on a Sunday afternoons, interesting reads I came across, personal points-of-views, and sometimes tagged them to videos and articles based on their interests. I was never upset if they didn’t take notice of my posts or liked them.

Ignore bloated egos and inflated endorsements

Who invented the Like button?  The Like button is like soda; it comes with a lot of sugar and fizz and gives you a momentary rush that eventually turns into an addict. When I talk about the Like button I must also talk about endorse and recommend features on LinkedIn. Sometimes reading through mutual endorsements, makes me feel suspicious if I am reading facts or fiction. Every sentence is punctuated with a superlative and makes individuals look a Superman or Superwoman. Where are the real people? Or do you misrepresent us to the world? Have we become fabulous liars on the digital world? I still have a few unprocessed recommendations waiting because I don’t know them more to endorse their work.

The last straw

During the recent Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris, I had shared an opinion column from the Guardian on my FB page on how “Je suis Charlie” campaign doesn’t make sense. Within minutes one of my friends on FB sent me a text message saying that I was being anti-French and that he is ashamed to have known me and stay connected with me on Facebook. Honestly, I liked the arguments put forward by the author and her healthy approach of approaching a subject from multiple viewpoints rather than being steadfast and standing our ground and going for the easy delete option. A harmless post uprooted a friendship that took years to sprout.

Digital makes no difference

I learnt my biggest lessons of life from observing and engaging with people on digital world. Despite having these stringent rules and principles, I’ve infuriated friends and managed to lose some good friendships. I’ve also compared the quality of relationships that I hold with people who I don’t engage digitally vs with those whom I engage digitally. I find that the digital world grows our unconscious bias and colors our perception based on images we see and information we read and share. Jealousy, superego, and narcissism creep in like an uninvited guest (weeds) and forces one to re-think their presence and friends on digital world.

Back to old ways

Values and morals seemed to be missing in the digital world. What has recently worried me is our digital appetite: the way we consume data and people, the trend has been more worrying than what we eat and calories associated with it. I had to end my addiction!

After much contemplation backed by experiences and data points from my social experimentations, I hit the delete button on multiple channels last week. I didn’t want to vanish discourteously from their world without a notice or a thank-you. I sent out emails to all those whom I was connected with informing them about my decision to end my digital presence and signed off digitally. Yes, I am back to my good old ways of engaging with real people and face-to-face.