Social Animals

I'm simultaneously excited and perplexed by the social phenomena of Web 2.0. I'm excited because through these new technologies, people have a way to stay connected throughout their lifetimes in a way they've never been able to before. I graduated from college in the early 1980s -- before cell phones, email or the public Internet. Since that time, I've had 10 different physical home addresses and phone numbers. The same holds true for most of my friends. I know it's cliché, but one way I've stayed connected with those friends over the years is through the annual Christmas card. (We publish a brief poem with a picture every year and send it to our friends.) Inevitably, people move and their change of address cards never arrive or the US Postal Service forwarding orders expire, so the cards are “returned to sender” and we lose touch.

In contrast, people graduating from college today can have the same phone number, email address and Web site their entire life. I'm excited by the benefits that we as a species will accrue as that ability to stay connected and transfer life experience will improve our lives much the same that the elders helped our ancestors survive in prehistoric times. (Does anyone know if there's been any research on how these technologies are affecting people and their social connectedness?)

The social networking phenomenon also perplexes me because I didn't grow up with some of these technologies, so I'm trying to figure out what some of these social networks are and which I should belong to. I joined Facebook, and I'm encouraging other executives at Sun to do so as well because it seems that Facebook is the best way to connect the college you attended with Sun (which is very important to Sun). To my dismay, very few of my “Class of '83” classmates have joined Facebook, so it may not be the best way to connect to my friends whose connections I've lost over the years of Christmas card exchanges. Hopefully that will be rectified with time as Facebook use expands to the “older” generations.

But what about MySpace? or LinkedIn? Should I belong to all of them? There's even some controversy out there about which network has which demographics or appeals to which social class. At what point does all this social networking reach a point of diminishing returns? I'm also trying to figure out the utility of Digg, del.ic.ous, and StumbleUpon (which is one way I'm discovering some of the creative things people are inventing).

Human beings are social animals. We like to get together with other human beings to do things. Evolutionarily speaking, it's how humans have survived. We got together and learned what foods to eat (or not). We banded together to hunt down prey much bigger and stronger than us. We shared ideas about tools to make life easier.

I think tech companies and the press often forget this fact. We have a tendency to overstate the impact of technology on human beings. We miss some things altogether: YouTube was a social phenomena as much as it was about technology. It was started by a couple of guys who wanted to share home movies with their extended families. They certainly didn't set out to create a revolution in the entertainment industry, but that's what they did by creating a way for people to share similar videos in a community. We overstate others, such as “distance education.” In many ways, “distance education” or “elearning” has been around since at least the early days of television (especially outside the US). This technology didn't put universities out of business, as many predicted. Just the opposite has happened. It's giving universities new revenue streams and enabling students from all over the world to connect with each other around academic disciplines.

Remember Web 1.0 or the Internet bubble? Many people actually thought that the Internet was going to put brick-and-mortar stores out of business. Someone thought that receiving dog food by mail was going to be more successful than conventional pet stores. They were wrong. Going to the pet store is not just getting pet supplies. It's about connecting with other humans who share similar interests. It's about learning what works or doesn't for your pet. It's about connecting with other people who share your love of dogs, cats, rats -- or even iguanas, for that matter. A sock puppet dog can't compete with that.

One of my favorite books on this subject is Guns, Germs & Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond. If you want an approachable and thought-provoking history of the world in 300 pages, get this book. I think he does one of the best jobs I have ever seen of describing the benefits of these social capabilities in making humans survive and thrive. For example, compared to most animals, we have one of the longest development periods before being able to take care of ourselves (16 to 20 years, or longer for some people I know.) One way we've survived, given this developmental time span, is that elders have lived long enough to pass on important learning to the youth. (What foods to eat. Where or how to hunt, etc.)

So we're social animals, and now the Web is expanding our ways to stay connected with people we care about as well as to connect with new people who share similar interests. It's going to transform us in ways we are only beginning to imagine.