500+ friends and yet so few friends

likes by Philip Dodson
likes by Philip Dodson

We have collectively created a world where we have confused more of something to be better than less. Whatever happened to quality?

500 friends on Facebook seems amazing, wow so many friends! It’s especially amazing to a generation that grew up before Facebook, yes I am that old. We used to have maybe 5-6 friends, who we might phone or see once a week, they were typically local, not living in Australia or Bali or Venezuela. We’d often grown up with them, known their families, and went to school together.

Now we break into a mild hysterical panic if one of our ‘friends’ does not reply within minutes.

We believe we are so popular in our dopamine fueled Nirvana of ‘likes’,’hearts’, ‘Wows’ and ‘Hahas’, yet how many of the 500 are real true friends that we truly connect to and who will be there for us whatever?

Of course, social media enables us to share things and keep connected with distant friends. But it isn’t a replacement for life, as in real life.

We can get everything in an instant in our world, but real friendships aren’t created in an instant.

They are not made online.

Focus on real people, in real-time and in the physical world, not the digital one.

Cheating yourself – like, share, RT….

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OK hands up, who has liked, shared or RT’d a post, article, blog, video etc without even reading or watching?

OK so maybe I’m the only one.

We live in a content saturated world and we all apply the ‘shit content’ filter now to be able to cut through the jungle of ‘blah, blah, blah’ to the stuff we like.

However, I am also noticing now how many people robotically will like an Instagram post, a blog or other content simply because it was tagged with #WhateverBollocks.

It’s like the ‘follower’ junkies who think they are popular (not sure who wants to be that) hoovering up followers with insincere tactics to get you to follow them, like the people who don’t know you blowing smoke up your arse on LinkedIn by endorsing you for a skill you don’t have. Now we have the sharers, who don’t look at what they’ve shared.

For me I say, carry on, as you’re the ones missing out, as you are cheating yourself of the great content, or maybe not so great, that you’ve blindly shared.

I for one will only share stuff I have read and genuinely like, not because the poster is popular or demands it to be shared.

Please feel free to share this LOL.