Greetings and salutations to anyone who might inadvertently happen to have stumbled across this latest outpouring of mine.
I've been giving some thought to the "follow" process , which seems to be an integral, all important and also greatly incentivised process within the Steemit halls ( although I have to admit.... I still have absolutely no understanding or real care about how the economic mechanics actually work).
Here, however, are a few observations stemming from my musings:
_ I think I've mentioned in past blog posts that I'm not of the social media generation; and therefore freely admit I don't have anywhere near a full understanding behind the cultures or motivations of the various social media platforms. To tell you the truth, the main reason for my lack of understanding is mainly because of my general lack of need.. and it cld be argued there are many reasons behind that too, but I wont go into those at the moment.
_ I'm aware that many folks have accumulated vast hordes of friends and followers on platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat and the ever growing number of etcetera's. Some of those being followed, friended and involved in other loose associations can number in the thousands. In addition, everyone is aware there are a vast array of bots and click farms trawling the net in search of and adding to the ever compounding numbers of people being followed and friended. We must not also forget there are also the many unscrupulous who target for more nefarious reasons of their own.
_ the kinds of numbers I have seen kind of begs the question.. how discerning are people being when they are making decisions about whom they are going to follow or friend. Just to be clear on what i mean, here is how one on-line dictionary describes what that word means:
Discern is defined as to recognize someone or something as different from someone or something else. An example of discern is being able to pick a friend out of a crowd.
- To some extent our whole education process is aimed at teaching us how to be discerning - that is, how to make the good judgements and decisions that might eventually enable and lead us to have happy and successful lives.
_ I can appreciate that by hitting the follow button, one is potentially giving a moment of happiness to both yourself and most likely to the person being followed, BUT.. here is my real question. Given all the other things we have to deal with in real life, ie,, work, play, sleep, socialising, cleaning house, eating etc etc, - how much time or interest do we really have in the works , ideas and lives of those we hardly know from a bar of soap? With the large numbers involved, the only conclusion I can make to that question is.... not very much.
_ there is so much happening on the net on so many fronts. Great ideas, huge creativity, quirky twists on amusing themes. The attractions are endless. I guess the challenge, just as it is when you make a decision as to what newspaper or magazine you will read or subscribe to, is to seek out and find that which is truly going to add to your own personal growth or which might aid in the development or extension of new interests.
_ The corollary of this is that I'm sure many of the folk who have accumulated thousands of followers, are going to be vastly disappointed when they somehow find out that virtually no one is reading or really interested in their ongoing efforts. By extension, this may eventually mean that the quality and challenges they are expressing in their writings and other offerings might diminish and eventually fade out.
- I don't, of course, have any real answer to this minor conundrum. As I mentioned above, its only an observation. Nevertheless, it is a question that most people are likely to have a view on - and I'd be interested in hearing what those views might be.
_ As a final thought... I've often wondered how many personal birthday wishes a Facebook member with, say as an example 2,863 friends might actually receive on their birthday. I suspect the answer is not nearly as many as there are friend numbers. Maybe an alternative approach we could all take is to issue a generic , happy birthday, to anyone in the world who might be having their special day on a particular date. Who knows.. such a process may just increase the general level of world happiness!!