The Social Media Bubble

Is the value of social media relationships overblown?

First came the housing bubble. Then came the debt bubble. Now a social media bubble? That's what Harvard Business Review blogger Umair Haque (who caused a stir at this year's SXSW Interactive Festival) is predicting. He thinks users of social web tools are dealing in relationships that are "low-quality," "weak," and "artificial." He suggests that, like that of products in a financial bubble, the value of these relationships has been overblown, and that even the meaning of the word "relationship" has been diluted.

Haque supports his assertion partly by noting how little economic worth these relationships have. For example, he wonders why companies haven't been able to monetize these connections and suggests it's because the connections themselves have no value. But someone must think these relationships have value, or else these sites wouldn't still be running. Recent estimates value Facebook and Twitter at $11.5 billion (U.S.) and $1.44 billion respectively. You could imply that the market price for social web tools is off, since it's based on relationships that are overvalued, but equally likely is that the market believes Facebook and Twitter will soon figure out how to create revenue streams worthy of those estimates.

Either way, Haque's assertion isn't an earth-shattering idea: people have been bemoaning the brittle quality of virtual relationships ever since the internet went mainstream. Every few months, someone points out to me how unrealistic typical Facebook friend-counts would be in real life. And it worries me when people base their self-worth on their number of Twitter followers.

Haque is more apt when he notes that people seem to say what they think others want to hear rather than what they think. However, that's a reflection of how well social media can imitate real life: head to any locker room, water cooler, or dinner party and the dynamics aren't much different. As in those situations, we still need to single out people we connect with, take them aside, and lower social barriers to get to know each other better until we can speak frankly.

If indeed, as Haque suggests, we are in a social media bubble, then we can look at stock market bubbles for a solution. Stock market bubbles occur when investors stop listening to their internal gauges for share valuation and instead become dependent on the market for their signals. If everyone trusted their gut instead of ignoring their instinct for quick market gains, bubbles would be rarer. Similarly, if social media users stop chasing unrealistic expectations in relationships and focus carefully on cultivating the right social circle, there shouldn't be a bubble.

“Dunbar's number” – 150 – pops into my head as an easy guide. It's the figure that's generally been suggested for how many people we humans can maintain stable social relationships with, a smaller figure for sure than the hundreds (or thousands) of friends or followers we may have.

Still, part of the allure of social media is getting to meet new people. What we're not used to, and where I believe social media relationship malaise could stem from, is the sheer volume of interactions. Never before have so many of us been able to make this many new connections in such a short time frame.

And with many new opportunities come chances for failures. As anyone who has encountered success knows, for every win there were many, many more misses. The key is not letting the disappointment hinder you from persevering.

In the same way, statistically, many of those connections will fail to result in genuine friendship: here are your low-quality, weak relationships. It doesn't mean we stop adding people to our networks. We just have to be smarter about our relationships.

And, in the end, whether it be on social media or in person, the most important relationship is the one we have with ourselves, as never before has a sober self-awareness of our own limitations been more relevant.