Ok, the numbers don’t lie, but people don’t understand numbers so we always use them to draw the wrong conclusions.  The human brain loves numbers, and I do mean LOVE.   That’s the problem, we are emotionally triggered by numbers.  Social media has taken it a step further assigning numbers to our social lives.  All this means that our current perceptions of the present and future reality of social media are over-hyped by the drama of mixing self-image with metrics.

You Have 0 Friends

As pointed out very poignantly by a recent episode of South Park, social media accounts can create an appearance of reality, positively or negatively, that is not supported by the real world.  Especially amongst younger users, people artificially invest effort in growing their online numbers as they feel it effects them in real life.

This has created a layer of “fad” hype over the genuinely useful elements of Facebook and Twitter.  All this means that the ways Facebook and Twitter are being used today distort their more long-term practical functions in everyday life.

Just Fooling Yourself

Scientists have shown that people can only really keep up with 150 friends, tops.  After that, you are pretty much just living in an online delusion of spam and fake-followers.  People using Facebook and Twitter to be productive in everyday life are not going to grow past 150, if that.

Facebook and Twitter, at their root, are replacements for email.  They are part of our continual search to find better ways to communicate.  We don’t communicate with thousands of people.  Once you go over 150, you are just broadcasting.

The Search for Better Communication

Facebook has separated friends and followers.  If you are a person, you have friends.  If you are a thing, you have “likes”.  Twitter, however, has no way of distinguishing between communication and broadcasting.  It is important for businesses to understand the difference between communication and broadcasting to understand the future of social media.

Facebook and Twitter are both distorted with hype right now.  People and business think they all need thousands of friends and followers.  When everyone realizes that all these large numbers don’t produce anything, we will start to realize what tools like Facebook and Twitter are really for…. of course, Twitter and Facebook will have to figure that out too.