I had a very interesting conversation this afternoon with a young woman who has recently started using Twitter. She said something that I’d not experienced on Twitter, or ever thought about. She said that she had been feeling very lonely on Twitter, not knowing anyone as a newbie to it. When she did start to follow people, several tweeted her back to say that as a new twitterer, was there anything they could help with, such as advice on using it.
Now this confirmed to me what Chris Brogan said in his presentation, that social media has humanity. It demonstrated both the negative and positive aspects of humanity: the feeling of loneliness, even in a virtual world and also the positive nature of people inhabiting that virtual world, by offering help and support to someone they recognised as new and a bit lost.
I’m not so convinced that someone new going onto Facebook would be spotted so easily, I’ve been using it for about a year now and I still can’t get my head round it. This is not helped by the number of changes the management make and the lack of any help notes to explain what’s what and how to do things.
On the other hand Twitter seems so much more accessible, is easy to pick up and seems to bring people closer, so that relating to each other is far easier.
So, watch out for newbie twitterers, offer them advice and support. Introduce them to a few of your friends, so that they can quickly stop feeling lonely and draw them in to your conversations. Let’s show the real world we’ve just as much humanity in our virtual one as well!
