The Real Reason to be on Facebook

Book Rapper Context : Reverse Evolution

Why Bother With Facebook?

Is Facebook a time waster? Are my Twitter followers worth anything? Will my LinkedIn connections get me a job?
In the narrow world of social media, these are good questions to ask.
And, the answer to all these questions is: It depends. It depends on your context and your motivation. What do you want?
It’s seems that connecting with our fellow human beings is highly important at a number of levels.

Connect and Grow Rich

Iggy Pintado tells the story that our success in life is shaped by our level of connection.
The better your connections the more resources you can tap into, the more opportunities you can create and the more value you can generate and share. Connect and grow rich!

Satisfaction and Wellbeing

We also define who we are by our connections. Or as Descartes might have said: I connect therefore I am.
At a happiness and healthiness level, connection is sustenance for survival. It’s Vitamin C for your soul.
Studies show that social connection is a major factor in our level of satisfaction and wellbeing.
It even plays a role in diminishing the level of depression one may experience.
Yet, there is something even more fundamental about connection. And, it all comes back to sex!

Sex! Sex! Sex!

Doesn’t it always? Or is that just a bloke talking with his you-know-what? Iggy points out, sexual intercourse is the ultimate intimate physical connection.
And, it highlights the one potent reason to create connections… to find a partner to procreate with and further your bloodlines.
If you really want to know why you bother with Facebook then that’s it… we’re all driven to meet people to create potential future benefits.
That’s not a choice, that’s hard-wired. It’s a survival instinct to connect with our tribe.
There’s a great debate going on about the role of language. Did we acquire it or is it a built-in factory setting?

The Real Glue That Binds Us

Language is the real glue that binds us. It allows us to share our minds so that we can collaborate, participate and procreate.
It allows us to connect deeper and more fully. And, now that we have our Connection Technology where do go  from here?
Some might scoff that connection technology is more of the same. Yep, we’ve always been connected and it just makes it easier.
I hear ya! I can click on anyone on Twitter and follow them. They don’t even have to ask. I can stalk their tweets as much as I want. And, with a little generosity, they might even follow me back.
So what’s the big deal? That answer lies in movies and blogs.

Movies and Blogs

You may recall our earlier Book Rapper issue We Blog. In it, we suggested that new effects emerge out of acceleration.
When we accelerate things to the right speed, we get a new and different effect.
At the right speed, still pictures became movies. And at the right speed, web pages became conversational blogs and microblogs.
Digital connection is following the same path.
At the right speed, the globe will be glued together like a single brain, buzzing and pulsing, moving, shaking and thinking.

The Thinking Planet

Thinking? Maybe… remember your spell checker doesn’t really know how to spell, it just gives the impression it does. Likewise, get enough connections and the planet could appear to think…
Is this the cure for global warming? May be, may be not. It could be weird, it could be wonderful.
At the least, global connections are shrinking the world faster than Susan Boyle can say ‘viral storm’.
It shrinks the world into a global village. It connects people, information, objects and ideas. The connected world goes round and round. It unites us, it celebrates us. Humanity grows.

The New World

The new model of the world appears to be one of reverse evolution.
The evolutionary model of cell reproduction shows one cell splitting into two and so forth.
The connected world reverses this… two cells merging into one.
Is this our connected future? The world coming together…