Maintaining Distant Connections

On the need for different (personal) social media channels

People will sometimes ask me what the “best” network is for them to share something. At one time or another, maybe you’ve talked to someone who fails to understand why anyone would want to use Snapchat or Instagram or [insert network here.] Things used to be simpler. You called someone or mailed them a letter and while I know some of you still do this, the majority of us aren’t mailing many things anymore.

On my drive tonight, I was thinking about sharing something that happened to me. As it happens often, I gave a brief thought about where I thought I should post it. This might seem weird, but I had to think about who might enjoy what I had to share and maybe it’d spark a conversation that I wasn’t expecting with someone else. I’m sure for people who don’t spend a lot of time on social media, this whole decision process seems weird. It’s even worse if you (like me) do it for a living. Appropriateness and channels matter. But it made me think about something else.

Part of what I was angling for, ultimately is about connection. For instance, I have a good friend who recently moved away. He lived in my town, but he’s kind of a social media Luddite so he’s only on Tumblr and Instagram. But he only religiously checks Instagram. He’s not a texter and we never talk on the phone. So posting little updates, especially something I know will resonate with him matters to me. Facebook has evolved in other ways, because of the different sets of people in my life who use it. At first, it was only friends. Now it’s family and varying degrees of friends.

When your community is far-flung, it sometimes requires great lengths to maintain connections. Not the sorts of connections that you can take or leave regardless of your life situation, or the ones that you’d be better off without. The friendships worth maintaining, but get harder to keep glued together as time goes on.