Tech Ties and Feeling Loved

Just in case you were wondering, no I haven’t switched over to fashion and style tips. Which is just as well if you take a close look at my tie collection! No, today I’m talking about the ties that bind that you don’t wrap round your neck in a Windsor knot - tech ties and social networking.

So, why use the phrase “tech ties”? Well, making online connections in social networks was a bit too much of a mouthful. Anyway, tech ties are unique, says Michael Pearson an Associate Professor of Information Systems at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale and his colleagues graduate student Nancy Martin and David Green, an Assistant Professor of Information Systems at Morehead State University. They are unique because they are relationships forged not through the usual routes of face to face contact that have existed for thousands of years but because they are created through the use of social software, instant messaging, email, blogs, online forums, social bookmarking sites, such as Digg and del.icio.us, microblogging tools like Pownce and Twitter and networking sites including Ecademy, LinkedIn, and Facebook.

So much, so obvious you might think. We’ve moved on from gossip around the actual watercooler to chit chat online.

However, writing in the International Journal of Web Based Communities - an obvious repository for such discussions, you might say - Pearson and his colleagues highlight the fact that tech ties are not only a new means for developing social networks but they are just as effective as non-tech ties and are valuable even when weak. I can certainly vouch for that, I know dozens, if not hundreds of people, I call friends who I have never even met, but interact with on a regular basis for work, rest, and play. Indeed, I am pretty sure most of them would say the same.

With all this electronic connectivity going on, there are times when personal precedence must come into play, however. I wrote a guest post on the Blah Blah Technology news site about the very same, suggesting that face to face still beats technology. Indeed, one of the critical phenomena underpinning some of the successes of tech ties is when the interactions go offline and become face to face relationships whether in business or in socializing.

The emergence of tech ties has not been seen as entirely positive by some observers. In fact, some people fear that society’s fascination with “all-things internet” is harming real relationships, community, and our lives. However, Pearson and his colleagues suggest that this is only one side of the argument, “The internet and related technologies have also been suggested as the savior of our society, bringing people together in a variety of new and unique ways and actually building new, web-based community.”

South Californian programmer Brett Kelly of the Cranking Widgets Blog perhaps sums it up, although his post is specific to his cellphone, it could just as easily apply to Skype (I’m david.bradley there if you fancy a chat), one’s Facebook profile, your GMail account, or that ancient BBS that’s still running on 9600 baud but you really cannot let go:

“I get that the cell phone doesn’t need to be on all of the time,” he says, “But I also don’t need to stop for donuts once or twice per week on my way to work. I do it because I like it and it makes me happy.” I e-spoke to one of my virtual friends, Wayne Smallman on the Blah Blah Technology, about all of this and he had some interesting questions that one could ask about the whole virtualization of relationships. A relationship on-line can’t be as strong or as meaningful as a real face-to-face relationship. “What is a friend on-line?” he asks, “Are they friends or just people we talk to?” He points out that the relationship is weaker still if you’ve never actually spoken to the people you know on-line. Others disagree and I know many other virtual contacts who would stress that their online connections are just as strong, at least as far as business goes, as their real-life contacts. That said, it’s always good to meet up and have a chat over a beer in a cosy smoke-free pub.

Meanwhile, Pearson and colleagues emphasize that whether the ties are tech or non-tech doesn’t matter. “Although there is a debate over the value of social software, from a social networking perspective,” they say, “these applications are valuable because tech ties provide an additional outlet for expanding one’s social network.” They add that social networks of friends, family, colleagues and acquaintances are among our most important resources, they provide advice and chit chat, they lead to new job offers, they can even make us money or help us get a better deal on a sale or improve our quality of life. Most of all, the tech ties that bind make us feel connected, wanted, loved even.