# Since leaving the major social networks (first through no usage and then deleting my accounts) I've written about still needing a social outlet online with micro.blog taking on that role.
Micro.blog is less a social network than a layer connecting blogs but still presents in the familiar timeline format. 1
But then I've also been writing about scaling and seeing people as people, not as units in a social stream. There seems a compatibility problem.
Recently I realised I was following almost 200 people on micro.blog (at the time of writing it's 211) and it genuinely bothered me. Perhaps more than it should.
Years ago, when I wrote about Dunbar's number, I had intended to prove that social media allowed us to go beyond it but, in making my argument, only served to reinforce the theory.
Social networks are really just one big game of "Circles of Acquaintanceship."
Although Dunbar's research suggested that the "theoretical cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships" ranges between 100 & 230 it is generally set at 150; beyond this range it becomes increasingly difficult to keep track.
The more I think about things the more intentional I want to be with my time and connections. I want them to go deeper, be less fleeting, and this has meant spending less time engaging with the micro.blog timeline. The busier the stream the harder it is to connect with given individuals.
It's not been so much a conscious decision as a natural evolution resulting from my current approach.
Seeing that I was following around 200 people felt like a jolt, a wake up call that I was heading towards the vacuity I now associate with most social media. Dunbar's number is almost like some kind of psychological threshold but I would argue that it's still too high.
While we naturally segregate our friends and acquaintances into groups (circles) based on the degree of intimacy this is hard to manage in a single, simple timeline-like environment. I think this is why particular voices have migrated to my RSS reader being a slower, more manageable venue allowing me to devote more time and concentration to them.
I use the web to connect with others but casual connections, the occasional comment scrolling past, don't seem right - don't feel like enough.
It makes me wonder if there is some kind of "post social" position. The explosion in social networks allowed us to expand, explore and see what was out there - the technology allowed us to learn something about ourselves and our nature. But it's as though we overdid it, took it too far and realised that it doesn't really work, that we need to reduce the scale, pare things back down to create something sustainable, meaningful.
This doesn't mean that I will stop using micro.blog or that I don't believe in its mission or potential, just that I'm unsure exactly how everything fits.
- The layer is how I’ve largely used it - to find those whose voices call to me leading me to subscribe to their blogs rather than just follow them in a social stream. ↩
Hi Colin, I appreciated your post about the scale of social networks and how Micro.blog fits in the picture. I prefer reading people’s blog posts above all else. I’ve lost interest in learning about all the minutiae of people’s lives that has come to characterize social media use in general, mostly because I’ve lost interest in sharing all the minutiae of my life. I’m not trying to sound elitist here: I am intrigued to no end when people post thoughtful ideas, crafting and deliberately presenting their thinking. But I can’t be intentional about with my time if I devote my all time to following the lives of people who aren’t demonstrating intentionality with their time. For me, micro.blog presents the opportunity to find some bloggers who are doing interesting work and who also happen to share my values about fostering an open and independent web. I use Micro.blog more as a gateway, or a hub, than a ‘platform’ per se. It is like dropping by a dinner party where you know you are likely to find some people with common interests. But day in day out, RSS is where I live, because it’s where people take the effort to flush ideas out and hone their thinking. This, to me, seems like a much more intentional use of my time than what has become an almost ‘universal’ social timeline experience. The beautiful thing about Micro.blog to me is that finding the person is synonymous with finding their RSS feed.
More and more I think that a slower, more thoughtful (maybe even harder?) method of following people and other interests, for instance via RSS, makes for a better, less overwhelming way of getting to the stuff we want to get to. Social media has brought us a too quick, too easy and too intuitive way of liking and following. We are getting weary of it, because we start to feel it really doesn’t mean anything anymore when someone clicks, taps or pushes that button. (Well, has it really ever?)
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