It’s no secret that I spend a lot of time on Twitter.  For me, it’s a valuable medium that facilitates quality sharing and knowledge exchange with smart, like-minded individuals who enhance my thinking and enrich my life. 

That’s what it can be, at least. 

It can also be a vehicle for shameless self-promotion, overridden with fame seekers and snake oil salesmen intent on building a huge network with little care – or concern — for who actually comprises it.  During one of my signature ‘rants’ on this topic a few days ago, I happened upon Sarah Doody’s profile, and after reading her bio, visited her blog, where her latest post was centered around this very topic.

It’s always good to connect with kindred spirits, and thankfully, Sarah is one of many with whom I’ve been fortunate enough to wax on this issue.  @DamienBasile, @AmberCadabra, @CKEpiphany and @MackCollier are others who all understand the importance of quality over quantity, and how to build substantive relationships based on real sharing and mutual respect — something that the friend collectors and wannabe gurus lack.  And something that has precipitated me to write this post in my ongoing attempts to thwart the ‘popularity paradigm’ that makes racking up contacts more important than the quality of those connections.
 
At least five times a day someone posts, ‘Oooh, I’m almost at [insert absurd number here] followers’ and then proceeds to beg for people to help them get more followers as though they were poker chips, and as soon as they reach some magical number, they can ‘cash out’ for the grand prize.  But there is no end as people scramble and scurry to continually add new ‘friends’ to their social networks, donning them ‘influencers’ and ‘rockstars’ and other equally shallow and meaningless terms that have absolutely nothing to do with building quality relationships. 
 
If someone gets to 500, they reach for 1,000, then 2,000 and so on.  But do they actually make any kind of real connection with these new ‘friends?’  Do they engage in meaningful interactions?  Do their thousands of contacts somehow augment their lives?  Or do they merely fulfill some vain attempt at being popular, resuscitating high school insecurities and hoping that by hanging out with the so-called ‘Internet elite,’ they will become so themselves?
 
I think there are various reasons why people continue to focus on quantity over quality, but as we continue to become more wired, does this mentality enhance or detract from our human-ness?  Are we evolving or regressing as a result of the endless supply of contacts available via the web?  It’s as though we’ve transformed into friend-adding bots scanning profiles for matching keywords and engaging as ubiquitous personas vs. actual living, breathing people.

The Internet is an immensely powerful tool with the tremendous ability to connect people with whom we may never have otherwise met.  People that do have the potential to positively impact our lives, but not everyone with whom you come across online will become your friend — or necessarily, should.  The same offline rules should apply whereby you spark a connection with someone [through any means -- online, mutual friends, restaurant/bar, etc.] that grows and builds from there. That is merely a launching point, and the accessibility — and abundance – of personal information should not mitigate the path to building a quality relationship.  Nor should those interactions be confined only to the cyber realm any more than you’d realistically be able to build — and maintain — deep relationships with thousands of people in the meatspace.
 
The web tends to create a false sense of intimacy, and when you tweet with someone daily or watch their lives in bite-size snippets in your Facebook home stream, you start to develop an affinity for that person and begin to consider them a friend. But the true barometer is if this is someone with whom you would leave your children or allow to watch your house while you’re away on vacation.  I suspect that, in most cases, the answer would be no.  So, while it’s possible to build real relationships via the web (and I have done so successfully myself), far too many detract from the true value of social networking when their focus is on the quantity in their network instead of the quality of their interactions. 
 
Remember that the sum of your friends does not translate to the the sum of your relationships.  I have 700+ followers on Twitter but probably less than a third of which I have an actual relationship or would consider a friend.  That’s not to say that there aren’t many others with whom I learn and share on a regular basis, and I try to keep my network small to cultivate a community of people interested in kindred exchanges vs. arbitrary friend collecting.  The latter will eventually weed themselves out but it’s tough to plant a seed that has any chance for growth in an already overgrown forest. And the only way you could truly have a relationship with thousands of people would be if you had thousands of years to nurture them, and last I checked, that’s one thing the Internet can’t do.

Special thanks to Damien Basile for his ongoing support, insights and inspiration.