Social Media :: Rekindling values from past generations?

Credits: Old Street Burger Shoppe

This morning Mashable is carrying an interesting article by Josh Rose a digital creative director of ad agency – Deutschinc saying that social media is perhaps leading to the return of our grandparents values . Think all things homily and comforting…like your local cafe owner knowing how you like your coffee or your nearby shop assistant knowing that you have relatives in a distant town and are heading there to visit them for the weekend. All brought to them compliments of your Twitter or Facebook status updates.

I think I understand what Rose is trying to communicate. And he has got a valid point. But can we  really compare the  connections people who have grew up in a small tight knit community have with their neighbours and real life friends with those friends we make online, have never met in real life and probably never will?

I don’t think so. Not yet anyway.

Firstly,  many of us probably need to become a lot more selective about who our online ‘friends’ really are. It’s hard to be any sort of ‘friend’ to someone when you have  5000 other friends needing your attention.

Then again perhaps that is why this year I decided to up the privacy settings on my Facebook page and posted an update that for the moment I was accepting no more friends. I felt that 1000 Facebook friends was really getting too much to manage and form any sort of ‘relationship’ with.

Rose ends with a question. “Will social media rekindle the values of past generations?”

I don’t think so. Not yet anyway.   I think what we will more do is take these values and ‘mash’ them up. It is what we are good at in the online world after all.