Trust forms part of what we call "social capital". Social capital can be described as a kind of cohesion that forms between people and organizations when people participate with each other in community and begin to trust one another. This happens over time and is either earned directly or through association with other trusted individuals.
Given the world we live in with social media dominating our relationshipscapes, Why All the Love??!
I have had this brewing in the back of my mind for a while now. But it really hit home during a recent trip to the interior. I am an avid twitterer and saw that a connection from there was also traveling to Kelowna the same time I was there. I sent her a message and asked if she would like to meet for coffee or a drink. She agreed. My friend and I went to meet her one evening and during our conversation we talked about how easily we give up trust in people we meet this way. I have had many recent examples where I meet people from twitter or elsewhere for coffee. having never met each other, without fail, one party always leaves their belongings at the table after the hand-shake to go get a coffee. Somehow, having never met you in person, I'm willing to leave my laptop, keys, cell phone etc with you. I have just transferred my trust to you.
In Kelowna, the women we met with told us that her husband had offered to come along and she declined feeling that she trusted us - two strangers. Did she have enough information from our tweets and blogs to know we were trustworthy? She noted that when she walked into the restaurant and saw us, she intuitively knew that it would be ok. How does this happen? What is it that helps us distinguish who to trust like this? Or, as we hear reports of people being stalked through social media such as FourSquare, are we just being far too trusting?
This post, I hope, will form more of a discussion. I really want input on this. what are your thoughts?
7 comments:
Thing is, I'm not so sure this is so much trust as simple sociability; Leaving personal possessions on the table while you go and get a coffee isn't such a risk as it sounds. Only a crazy or very desperate person would snatch your junk and try to make a run for it. It's not like you gave them the keys to your car and said you wouldn't be back for 1/2 an hour.
Personally, I would be surprised at anything less even from a stranger.
Gilligan
Social media encourage a sharing behaviour. This is the foundation of trust.
being the woman in question, and remembering our discussion, let me add a little bit from what i remember from our conversation. one of the things we noted was that we feel that we can tell quite a bit from the tweets alone. actually, let me turn that into a little blog post ...
Wow, thanks for all your comments! i really like how this is leading to some discussions. In Fact, Isabella Mori has written a follow-up post on her blog. You can read about it here: http://www.moritherapy.org/article/body-language-and-cyber-language/
I'm not sure I understand your
direct linkage between love and trust, but letting that detail go....
I agree that social media promotes a sharing behaviour, but that's only as socially healthy and safe as the people involved.
I also believe that very limited trust should be established through FB/Twitter or even casual coffee meetings. We can gain hints of what people are like, but it would be foolish to extend trust to strangers on such weak foundations.
Trust is established over time as people are able to demonstrate that they Walk the Talk and not just Talk the Talk - which is all social media allows.
I have some concern about the general confusion many people have about the difference between a real friend and an acqaintance. Related to this is the social media numbers game that leads people to think the number of friends or followers they have establishes their popularity and therefore their value in our society.
Although I'm an avid FB user, I think it's wiser and safer to use some caution and have some discretion around social media. I suspect the likes of Ted Bundy would (in today's world) be an active user of social media and would have hundreds of FB friends and Twitter followers who would swear he was charming and completely trustworthy... In other words, adults should be every bit as cautious as we encourage our children to be.
hi anonymous -
i thought about that quite a bit when i wrote my reply post, and would be interested in your opinions on my thoughts there.
how easy is it, i wonder, to fake all the subtleties of being a (relatively) good and healthy person to be around? and is that different between social media and regular social contact?
i think of all the women i know who got involved with the wrong guys and often the signs were out there for everyone to see if you looked for them. prematurely expensive or ostentatious gifts, unexplainable absences, too many phone calls, etc., etc. i think there are equivalences of that in social media.
i've been involved in social media since long before it was called that (some of you may remember bulletin boards from back in the 80s). i haven't had problems with one "bad" person yet, have made many an interesting contact, and formed some deep friendships.
i agree with you, though - let's not get carried away with confusing acquaintances with friends. actually, just remembered: i wrote a post about that a few years ago: http://www.moritherapy.org/article/quickie-whats-a-friend/
Excellent response Isabella! You made me LOL. You are absolutely right that it's relatively easy to fake being 'good and healthy' in face to face social contact. We all wear masks, and most of them are designed to hide our Shadows. In fact, some of us excel at this to the point where we don't even know (remember) who we are ourselves. The big difference in my book is that IF there is a dangerous Shadow lurking about, social media adds an extra layer (barrier) that prevents us from picking up clues we may have detected from personal contact. I am so glad you have not met any 'bad' people from your internet connections, and I truly hope you never do. But I think every such interaction carries some degree of risk - so trust your intuition if that small voice begins whispering to you - no matter how wonderful their FB and/or Twitter accounts paint them to be.
The part that made me LOL was your reference to the bad decisions some of us have made - e.g. getting involved with the 'wrong guys'. It reminded me of a friend who went out of town to meet a guy she had 'met' on a dating site. I was speechless when she told me she had described herself in her profile as a petite blonde, when in fact she would better be described as a BBW, and she was Chinese with black hair.
I'm not suggesting that social media should be avoided, but I am saying be careful about what you believe and who you trust when that's your source of information about someone. Social media provides those who have something to hide with one more (thick) layer to hide behind, and the truth may not be as quickly apparent as it was when my friend introduced herself to her out of town date...
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