Many People are lonely. The Internet, it is suggested, can help overcome loneliness. But it now has a credibility problem. And the topic also has its pitfalls in other respects.

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How credible are users?

You shouldn't take everything so seriously on social networks, because things are often simply exaggerated here. It's part of the game. But even if you know that, it is not always easy to see through this game. And there is always the risk that you will get a wrong picture of others.

In 2011, Amina Abdallah Araf al Omari was the model blogger from Syria, which was oppressed by the regime: The lesbian boy Ms. reported directly on the unrest in their homeland. Until she was picked up by Syrian police forces and disappeared, according to her blog. But none of that was true. In reality, a 40-year-old married white American studying in Edinborough, Scotland, had posed as Amina. He wanted to support the dissidents in Syria with the fake blog. In the end, the IP of his betrayed him eMail-Address. Regardless of the fact that he only made the real Syrian sources even more unbelievable with this fraud, the story shows one thing above all: how light it is, on the internet, at least for a time, to spoof his identity. Now the internet is not full of fake identities. As already stated, most people act comparatively congruently with their real personality - even if some of them use a pseudonym.

Lonely together?

The sociologist Simon Edwin Dittrich has signed up for an anthology for the Heinrich Böll Foundation on the subject of “#public_life – digital intimacy, the Privacy and the Net ” dealt extensively with how the changed communication behavior affected the individual and the Society affects. According to his observation, modern technologies primarily lead to an increase in asynchronous Communication. This means conversations in which the interlocutors either do not act at the same time or do not act in the same place.

As an example, Dittrich cites writing text messages while eating. On page 100 of the #public_life volume, he says: “When I was a child, it would have been unthinkable to get up from the dinner table to answer the phone. When I eat with friends today, it often happens that several of us look into their phones, EmailCheck s, write SMS, tweet or on Facebook to write. Of course there is always a hail of rain Criticism by people who find it impolite not to give them their full awareness dedicated. But the vehemence is decreasing. ” For Dittrich, this is not just a singular phenomenon, but has an impact on our society: For example, many travelers on trains no longer talk to each other, but to other, far-away conversation partners via mobile phone or laptop. So instead of communicating with the direct environment, one increasingly only speaks selectively with people who one has chosen oneself. But that makes perception more selective and exchange poorer: A lot of information that you can find in one Conversation would get by chance among travelers, thereby fall by the wayside. To put it figuratively: the tunnel view of mobile communication can prevent you from broadening your horizons.

Communication in the public space

For Dittrich, this creates a public space in which, paradoxically, above all private actions are carried out - for example, when people on the bus argue on their mobile phones and everyone notices. And it is precisely these interstices that make it more difficult to get out afterwards, as Dittrich states, because they are not really private: "But with the traces that we leave behind in the public interstices (dreams), it becomes more difficult to completely change an environment. In any case, it's not as 'easy' as moving from Klein-Gummersbach to Hamburg, because ours Online-Profiles remain unchanged.” An experience that Vivian Pein also had. The 29-year-old was a community manager at Xing and was also perceived as such on the internet. She had also contributed to this herself with her numerous activities in and around the Internet. But then she switched to the logistics company Hermes as a social media manager. The problem: Many of her online contacts didn't even notice the job change - and still address her as a Xing employee.

The American psychoanalyst and sociology goes one step further.Professorin Sherry Turkle. She has been researching the effects of modern technical developments on our lives for over 30 years. In her new book "Alone Together" she warns of the creeping loneliness that communicative changes can bring. Because the Internet, especially in the mobile version for Hand– or trouser pocket, would always offer the opportunity to escape from the complex interpersonal relationships of reality – like the student who would readily exchange her boyfriend for a robot as a lover in order to get the Welt easier and better to do. Or like colleagues who eMailSend s or SMS to the neighboring office because it would seem too intimate to just drop by. Important information and emotions that would be exchanged in a phone call or in a personal conversation are missing - and this is precisely what changes not only communication but also interpersonal relationships as a whole. Turkle said in an interview: “You can have other relationships online. In a way, people reveal more of themselves. But they reveal what they want to reveal, not necessarily what the other wants to know! In a face-to-face friendship, there is more of a real exchange. I've been researching chats like this since the early XNUMXs, and guess what: when things get uncomfortable, people pinch. There is much less commitment in relationships. "

Loss of reality through the Internet as a great danger?

Now Turkle may be right that social relationships on the Internet are different, more superficial, and that for some people there is a risk of losing reality if you get too involved with it. The medic Shima Sum from the University In a 2008 study among seniors, Sidney also showed that existing loneliness is very difficult to combat with social media, chats, forums and private messages. On the contrary, once isolation in real life makes its way into the virtual social network, the lack of real friends tends to increase. However, online intimacy should not be confused with real intimacy. And, of course, texting online is more convenient than phone calls or face-to-face meetings because you're dealing with a large number of people Contact stand up and they stand up more at the same time Distance hold than would be possible, for example, with a telephone call where we have to be present in person and they voice – and the resonating in it emotions – hear the other. However, I can't see what's wrong with it, on the contrary, in order to be able to work efficiently, this filtering is even incessant. Especially since Turkle also says about himself that eMails are also your most important communication channel. A Dutch study by Patti M. Valkenburg and Jochen Peter consequently shows that social media are an excellent means of cultivating an existing circle of friends.

So you have to differentiate. First for the reasons why you use social media, but also for who you communicate with and why. Because of course there is a risk that you will lose your inner Schweinehund gives in and lazily sits at home instead of meeting people in person. And while most people in real life often know very well who is a friend, colleague, acquaintance or enemy, it is precisely this distinction that seems to confuse many people in social networks. I always notice that when people, who usually don't meet everyone for a beer, ask me uncertainly "What do I do when I'm at Facebook get a friend request from someone I don't want as a friend?" The reason for this is that although communication in digital spaces is public, it is often somehow personal. The strict separation between public and Private no longer exists in the network, the borders have been lifted. So the question is: how do we deal with it? Do we need new borders? Or are we infinitely free?

Throwing unicorns while whispering

Daniel Decker sits on the big stage in the Friedrichstadtpalast and drinks vodka. And he's talking about tinsel. Flitter is flirting via Twitter, where Decker is active as @kotzend_einhorn. And he soberly realizes that there are big differences between communication on Twitter and real life: Twitter, in his experience, is not a chance for shy people to find their life partner.

This is what happened in the event “What's happening? Love.”, which became one of the major crowd pullers at the blogger conference re:publica 2011. Probably also because this is a topic on which everyone can somehow have a say. What was really exciting, however, was the discussion between Decker and moderator Teresa Bücker about role-playing games and communication behavior on Twitter, which can still be seen as a video on YouTube today. While Bücker took the view that people who are very smart on Twitter nice and eloquent, which are usually also in reality, Decker had had other experiences: The self-confessed phone muffle can express himself much better in writing than verbally and therefore had to listen to the following after successfully initiating contact on the Internet: "You are much funnier on Twitter... somehow you are a whole different person." His explanation for this: “Even if you act on the Internet under your real name and hide as little as possible, it is still the case that you naturally create a character. Of course, this can also happen in real life. But the difference is that on Twitter, before you meet for the first time, you have communicated much more intimately and much further than when you meet at a party. That's why the picture that the other person has already made is completely different."

Communicate on the Internet - but do it correctly!

That's the important point: people form an image of others when they talk to them. This is made up of what someone says - but unconsciously also of the gestures, the facial expressions and the tone of the voice. Exactly these features are missing in communication in social networks. For example, because one usually communicates in writing on social media. As a result, however, we are missing important information that our interlocutors unconsciously communicate to us in personal dialogue through voice, gestures and facial expressions. In 1967, the American psychologist Albert Mehrabian found out in two studies that the effect of a message only seven percent depends on the content of what is said. 55 percent is determined by body language and 38 percent by voice, intonation, intonation and articulation. But what to do if we lack this 93 percent of communication - for example, if we just tweet with people or on Facebook chat instead of talking to you personally? Then we have to think of this information and, whether we like it or not, we tend to have little or nothing to do with reality - depending on how well we really know the person we are talking to.

Therefore, social networks should always only be part of our communication - but they should not replace personal communication. If this does happen, there is a risk that, whether they intend to do so or not, we will get a completely wrong impression of our interlocutors. How much the image that people give of themselves on the Internet differs from real people obviously depends heavily on the personal image satisfaction away. The media psychologists Sabine Trepte and Leonard Reinecke from the Hamburg Media School have in several studies selection of avatars in computer games. The data shows that most people tend to give their avatars positive masculine characteristics, such as size and strength, in game scenarios with male requirements. In game scenarios with a female requirement profile, on the other hand, predominate positive feminine characteristics. However, the subjects generally preferred same-sex avatars. And: The happier a person is with themselves, the more their avatar resembles them. On the other hand, those who were rather unhappy in their lives painted their virtual world all the more beautifully - and their avatar differed more from their own person.

Interaction between online and offline

Vice versa act but surprisingly also avatars and onlineBehavior on their own personality: Trepte and Reinecke also found out that people who reveal a lot about themselves on social networks are more open and communicative in real life after just six months and also have more friends. The results of the Hong Kong Chinese Nick Yee also go in a similar direction: As part of his dissertation at Stanford University, he proved that people who have a particularly good-looking and are therefore more successful with the opposite sex Age Ego on the net, at some point also dealt more openly with their private lives in real life and also tended to have sexual contacts more quickly. Apparently, online success had made her braver than other people.

Above all, these examples show one thing: that people not only define their identity out of themselves, but above all when dealing with others. Or to put it another way: From the reactions of the outside world to one's own actions and actions, every person forms an image of themselves. But what happens when communication with other people changes as dramatically as is currently the case through social media and mobile communication Case is?

The trick with peer pressure: what everyone does, I want too!

The artist Carola Rümper didn't feel like Fac for a long timeebook: All the stories about data being passed on all the time, everything is public and everyone gets what you do – No Thanks! The visual artist from Berlin had long since discovered the Internet for herself: on specialized ones Artportals such as Kulturserver.de and artists.de, she has been on the road for years to find information, exchange ideas with others and market her work. But Facebook? That was just too undifferentiated for her.

Then came January 21.01.2011st, XNUMX. That was the day on which Rümperer turned to Fac after a long period of hesitationebook registered. Because, especially in the Berlin art scene, everyone was somehow there. Because she wanted to market her work. And because she felt like she was missing out on something when she wasn't there. She now uses Facebook about two or three times a week. Usually to see what others are doing, which exhibitions have been held and for oneself Advertising to publish for her own studio. Your skepticism, however, has remained.

The interactive effect: As a vegetarian alone at the barbecue party

Like Carola Rümperer, there are many people who have not yet joined: They hear about social networks like Fac all the timeebook and twitter. After all, the topic is always present - be it in the media, with friends, colleagues or acquaintances. When EVERYONE is talking at lunchtime in the canteen about what's happening in the neighboring office at Facebook was posted or you have to answer the horrified question in the negative: “How, you don't have an account yet?” That leaves a bad feeling. Namely, to be the only one who has no idea - just like being a vegetarian alone at a barbecue party or wearing a brightly colored plaid dress that everyone is whispering about. Who wants to be the one who's standing outside and missing the party?

Sense and Nonsense of Social Networks: Slaves of the Participatory Effect?

Many companies use this hands-on effect to create new customers to win - just think of the partner tariffs for mobile phones, which aim to convince your friends of the qualities of provider X or Y as well. And social networks, which are also profit-seeking companies, do exactly that: they harness all those who are already there to recruit new members. From a business point of view, by the way useful: After all, the business model is to get as many users as possible. How sensible and social this is for customers is debatable. Especially with Facebook!

uniebook is particularly aggressive when it comes to "convincing" even more people of its qualities - probably one reason why it became the most popular online network worldwide within just a few years. The web analytics company Pingdom has evaluated Google Trends and listed 29 social networks that have more than a million hits a day worldwide. With 310 million daily page views, Facebook far ahead. With 51 and 37 million hits respectively, the Orkut and Qzone networks, which are largely unknown in Germany, are far behind. Only then does Twitter follow with 22 million daily hits.

The key to this incredible success for Facebook heißt eMailFriends Finder. This allows registered members to find old acquaintances and friends by giving them access to the network eMailGrant account. As a result, Facebook don't just find out who you ever got from this eMail-Account has written, no, conveniently you can also add all those same to Facebook invite those who are not yet registered. Fast, beautiful and easy. The “but” follows immediately: Even if Facebook insuredNot to save your password: at least the imported ones eMailAddresses are provided by Facebook saved and still used! And so then get all the unsuspecting people in your too eMail-Address book previously with Facebook did not want to have anything to do, mail from the “blue giant” with the friendly, but whimsy question, whether they would not finally want to join.

Checklist: peer pressure and unwanted invitations at Facebook avoid

Social pressure and peer pressure

When Google launched its own network Google + (pronounced Google Plus) in June 2011, which has since been closed again, it initially relied on a completely different network Strategy as facebook: In a field test with a very limited group of users who were only allowed to join the network with special invitations. This strategy of limited access, for example, also applies to the Company Apple with their products - and it works excellently: Because users who like the new product or the new network fast want to try out as much as possible only become more curious the more they are kept from what they want. The podcaster and programmer Max Winde wrote on Twitter on June 30.06.2011th, XNUMX: “I'm annoyed that I'm annoyed that I don't have a Google Plus account yet.” Of course, this works primarily with new products, but in the long term Google naturally wants exactly that achieve the opposite: namely as many Fac users as possibleebook convince them to switch to Google.

The Method is quite different from Facebook, the effect is the same: social pressure is exerted in this way. The fact that this works so well from the point of view of companies is due to the way our psyche is knitted: The Greek philosopher Plato already knew that people are social beings designed for community. Accordingly, their decisions are strongly influenced by their environment - up to and including social pressure, which we ultimately give in to. As numerous psychological experiments show, the influence of our friends is sometimes so strong that people turn against their conscience when faced with social pressure decide.

Social media for fear of loneliness?

With regard to social networks, peer pressure is certainly only one motive for joining them - there are also many advantages such as the rapid exchange of information or practical finding of old and new acquaintances: But through the social pressure and the Anxiety from loneliness it becomes a little easier to understand why many, even hardened opponents, then suddenly become members of a social network. There are some in my circle of acquaintances who initially said with the deepest conviction: "You'll never find me there!" And then one day they surprised me at Facebook with a friend request.

But regardless of the many advantages: the fears and reservations are still there among many users. And they ask themselves: What happens to my data? Who is actually reading this? And what can people do with it? It is by no means wrong to worry about data protection and responsible behavior on the Internet. However, you have to deal with the topic sensibly, gain experience and create your own Opinions form. Shutting yourself off from social media and bursting into loud wailing gets you nowhere. This is exactly the problem in Germany.

The strength of weak bonds

I often hear the critique, but you can hear it just as well eMails could write like use social networks. Or make calls - for example via Skype. Not at all: The pinboard entry on Facebook, the status report on Xing or a tweet create new opportunities for communication - just as if two people were talking in a marketplace and a third happened to join them. If you had made an appointment beforehand, you might have had scheduling difficulties. Incidentally, like in a real marketplace, there is not only chatting, important information is also exchanged, negotiations and sales are carried out.

But the crucial point is that this means of communication creates a dialogue that would otherwise not exist. Just think how often you get one eMail don't write because it's so time consuming. Or postpone the answer forever, because you just can't find time, sometimes a really nice one eMail to write. Or you don't call people because you don't have time to chat or you don't want to and can't disturb the other person at work. In social networks, regardless of whether you are Facebook, Twitter or Diaspora, on the other hand, the dialogue works because people can send messages and short scraps of information to each other without making a big fuss about it. This works because you don't have to write long introductions about what you've been up to in the past few months, but a few lines are enough to update your target person. Precisely because the message length is limited to only 140 characters, Twitter, for example, is like that successfullythat other service providers have copied the principle and (such as Shortmail) only shorteMailallow s. Because the readers are also happy when the news and scraps of information are only briefly canceled - then the willingness is greater to even get involved in the exchange. Last but not least, the dialogue is no longer limited to a sender and his recipient, but takes place between entire groups that can now interact. And you can put together your own personal message stream from various sources using the appropriate filters.

The information you get here is also clear more innovative than the traditional way: As early as 1973, the American sociologist Marc Granovetter put forward the theory of the strength of weak ties: Because strong ties to people you know well like friends, Family or work colleagues are often very similar to each other because you have the same circle of acquaintances, you get very little new information about these strong ties. Weak, superficial ties, which are common in social networks, therefore offer a much higher potential for innovation, because on this ways completely new impulses and different perspectives that you probably wouldn't even have asked for because you wouldn't have thought of it.

Market place in the global village

The Canadian philosopher and communication rhetorician Marshall McLuhan, who is regarded as the founder of media theory, foresaw many of the changes brought about by the Internet early on and coined many terms that are still common today: such as the 15 minutes of fame that many are looking for on the Internet, surfing the sea of Information and the medium as the message. In 1962, in his book The Gutenberg Galaxy, he wrote about the global village that electronic media was turning the world into. Before the invention of writing, people relied on direct communication with other people through voice and ear and therefore had to live together within earshot, i.e. in village and tribal communities, that changed with the invention of writing. On the one hand, communication was now also possible over greater distances, and at the same time people had to imagine the associated images when reading because they no longer had them directly in front of their eyes. This forced them to focus, to individual isolation, and to causal, linear thinking. The invention of the printing press reinforced this development, because it was no longer just a few that could read, but the majority. This made industrialization possible in the first place and promoted nationalism and individualization - and with it the alienation of people from one another. A drastic one change, which is comparable to the upheavals caused by the Internet today.

Because the electronic media are changing our perception and our thinking again, because they act like an extension of our sense organs: thanks to image and sound, the audio and spoken communication of the village tribal culture, in which individuality is given up in favor of a collective identity. A global village emerges: Without changing your location, you can get in touch with people from all over the world via the Internet. The world is growing closer together through networking. But this can not only have positive consequences: McLuhan also warned of the possibility of abuse, totalitarianism and terrorism if the dangers emanating from the new media were not adequately reacted to. And made it clear that Technology has no morals in it: it is just a tool that always depends on how the person uses it.

Today the global village is already populated – by the Digital Residents who are in the Definition by Peter Kruse are at home on the Internet: They want to use as many different sources of inspiration as possible, make interesting contacts quickly and easily, exchange ideas and creatively help shape society. To do this, they meet regularly at the marketplaces in the Global Village. Digital visitors, on the other hand, have difficulties with precisely these forms of communication: they seem too superficial, too self-promoting and overwhelmed. On the other hand, the protection of their privacy, precise information with depth and familiar, personal relationships are more important to digital visitors. However, if there are common values, as the Internet activist Stephan Urbach has found in the case of political actions, then even these opposites can be overcome - for example if you work together for a good cause and suddenly have the same standard of values: "I share the statement that discussions between residents and visitors are marked by conflicts. But when it comes to a common, achievable Objective goes, these borders and opposites disappear and you can work together. And make the world a little bit better.”

Markets are conversations

In 1999, Rick Levine, Christopher Locke, Doc Searls, and David Weinberger published the Cluetrain Manifesto. In 95 theses you formulated a new relationship between people and markets in the age of the internet. The key message was that the power of the conventional Marketing dwindling and that the Internet means the end of one-way communication. In the future, selling will no longer mean showering customers with advertising messages, but rather maintaining a constant dialogue with them.

Because studies show that pure advertising is often ignored. Everyone knows this from themselves: in the commercial breaks when watching TV, you go out or zap around and blinking banners on the Internet you click away annoyed. You will not buy the product. But if a friend tells us that this or that product is an absolute hit - then there is a high probability that we will buy it. And even if we are considering buying something, we like to ask friends for advice - simply because we trust them. Successes of companies in social networks are based on exactly this principle: The magic word is recommendation marketing. The goal is that as many people as possible recommend their own products or services in social networks.

Ideally, it works the way Sachar Kriwoi describes it: by listening and recognizing needs. A company that offers customers good service and products will be recommended to others. It can with honest, good Performance really convince, build a positive image and thus retain customers. And this is exactly what social media is best suited for, because it can increase the recommendation effect. Conversely, bad products, errors and lousy service become public just as quickly and damage a company's image Company sustained. Thank you for the transparency and openness on the internet! So in the end, those companies that are good to their customers have the edge – sounds nice, doesn't it?

Light and shadow of communication

Unfortunately, the reality is not quite so ideal. Unfortunately, where there is light, there is also shadow. Companies that are primarily concerned with meeting key figures and pure profit maximization have with this Structure social networks so their Problems. A clever strategy is usually devised to achieve their goals A-Z is planned. Behind it is the desire, the result from the beginning check to want, so that what is desired happens as planned. If you follow the psychologyprofessor Peter Kruse, companies inevitably have to fail. For him, a Web 2.0 strategy is a contradiction in terms, because it implies controllability that does not even exist. Social networks, however, refuse this classic strategic thinking because they are designed to be self-organized. Instead of strategic control, Kruse simply recommends: Swim along. “It's about being part of an uncontrollable dynamic. And to do what entrepreneurs have always done: They have moved receptively and sensitively in the culture in which they were active. They swam along intuitively and then set their impulses on the basis of their experiences. "

The well-known cleaning agent manufacturer Henkel impressively demonstrated how difficult it is for companies, or their decision-makers, to relinquish control and intuitively leave themselves to chance. There they had put out a competition to find creative design proposals for detergent bottles. But the 50.000 designs submitted were more creative than expected: sausages, pretzel scent and, above all, the chicken-flavored design by copywriter Peter Breuer were well received on the Internet. Henkel then intervened several times: only selected designs were released to the competition or the ranking was adjusted. Reason: In the end, the dishwashing liquid should not only be funny and creative, but also be bought - and the chicken taste was simply in the way of the marketing strategy.

And since many companies have long since discovered social media as a marketing channel, such and similar manipulations are unfortunately anything but unusual Tricks Increased follower or click numbers, embellished recommendations and ratings or faked entire positive blog articles. Because a fierce competition over the most fans and the best ratings has long since flared up on the Internet. And there are numerous companies that offer such services quite openly on the Internet. And it also seems worthwhile for users at first glance: Recommending jobs and products to friends that you think are good and still good for that Money zu to earn, can't be that bad. Unfortunately, they do, because these users lose their valuable reputation for a few clicks. And this is precisely where the great danger of social media becomes apparent: if the boundaries between communication and advertising become increasingly blurred because the latter is not clearly identified as such, then that perverts them Idea of social media fundamentally. But what exactly are the dangers that emanate from this misunderstood Web 2.0 communication? And how can you prevent or avoid this?