More recently the idea of “lowest possible engagement” has come to represent much of what ails the social web: Likes, retweets, +1s – throwaway actions which have become the mainstay of our social interaction often at the expense of more meaningful responses.
Where people used to visit blogs and leave genuinely thoughtful comments or even write a response on their own blog the propensity is now to “plus one and run” at the site of the social share rather than at the original post itself.
Our self-imposed attention problems brought on by trying to follow too many people on too many social networks demand that we head for the easy solutions, the curated lists or groups, the bite size chunks of news in an attempt to consume as much in as short a time with the least effort as possible.
The focus on consumption leaves us with little or no time for reflection, response or even creation.Colin Walker
I find my self falling prey to all of this especially when I don't have anything meaningful to add in the moment but want to signal that I enjoyed what was posted. However, there are moments when I want to leave a response but I lack the time to cogently respond. Sometimes I save the link to Evernote with the intention to write something later.
The thing is, I often don't. Sometimes it's out of laziness. Sometimes I just can't get my thoughts in order ( see the tag line to this blog ).
What ever the reasons for my lack of effort, I think Colin is right. I may have sold my soul and my voice to social media. What shall I do about that?
Thanks for the shout out Khürt. I think that we just need to be realistic about what we can achieve and what we actually "need". Do we really need to be on all networks following everyone? Do we need to follow every blog?
What I try to do is tailor my social experience to the service in hand and thus divide up my following between them. If I subscribe to a blog via RSS do I need to follow the associated social account if it only publishes the same posts? If someone spends 90% of their time on Twitter do I need to also follow them on Plus if there is no real benefit? Why duplicate.
Sometimes there is no option and people use multiple networks effectively tailoring their content to each one so you end up following them in multiple places but I think we all need to step back and think hard about exactly what we want from social then not be afraid to "miss out" on some of the other bits.
I think I need to take a moment to reflect on what I hope to accomplish with social media. I do find myself sharing more technical on Google+ since I feel the audience is more receptive. But all too often I also post them to Twitter and Facebook. I also follow the same people on Google+ and on Twitter and I see the same content.