“Is this real life?”

Much anxiety has been expressed about whether the expansion of our social networks via the Internet has caused relationships to become more superficial.  Remember when we worried that everyone online was a stalker or a creeper? In the early days of social media, I think it’s fair to say we all felt a little “David After Dentist” who asks “is this real life?”

A new Harris study (“SocNet Users Feel More Connected, But Not In Person“) shows just the opposite to be true. Sixty-three percent of Millennials (adults 18-34 years old) say they feel more more connected to people now than previously.

“Social network users say this even as majorities admit they recently have had less face-to-face contact with friends (55%) and know what’s going on with many of their friends and acquaintances, but don’t interact with them personally or individually (60%).”

A greater sense of connection via social media has been my experience, as well. In fact, the relationships I maintain online through tweets and blogs are just as real to me as those I maintain in ‘real life’.

I just returned from the Pivot Conference, a two and a half day feast of speakers and ideas in New York has my head spinning with ideas. There have been several good recaps (I especially like Neil Glassman’s for a quick overview), so I won’t try to summarize. But what made the conference especially interesting was the somewhat disorienting experience of meeting my online friends in person.

I’ve been blogging and talking about Marketing to Millennials™ for many years I think it’s fair to say that I am at least digitally connected to most people who are passionate about this subject.  I ‘curate’ articles, studies and thoughts on Marketing to Millennials™, social media, market research and youth culture. Since this was pretty much the focus of the focus of the conference, many of the people who read this blog and follow my tweets were there.  It seemed that everywhere I turned there was someone I ‘knew’, at least through their online identities. And what’s more they ‘knew’ me.

Meeting your online friends for the first time creates some curious and new social dynamics.

The sensation is both awkward and sweet: “Oh, it’s GREAT to ‘meet’ you!! It was unnecessary to exchange cards. We started from square two or square three rather than square one. The conversation was immediately richer, about the conference and ideas rather than our identities, just as it would be if you were talking to someone you had known for some time. Consequently, the  conversations were unusually productive and stimulating, as we already knew what questions would be relevant to each other’s interests.

The networking was also unusually productive. I met new people through my existing friends, which made the usual banalities of conference networking less apparent. After my presentation on Sunday night, I heard from several people who’s writing I follow complimenting me on the speech or saying they would like to get together sometime.  Another surprise: many of us already follow each other on Twitter, so the Twitter ‘back conversation’ during this conference was unusually lively and frank.

Josip Petrusa is an  online ‘friend’  I met face to face for the first time at Pivot.  In a post titled “For Millennials, online friends are real friends” he notes that “friends and friendships are not simply defined as someone you’ve met in person.”

“When I went to New York City for the Pivot Conference, I went not ever having met anyone in-person. Once there, we all met as if we were friends for sometime. It’s because we have been friends for sometime, only separated by the physical distance between us. Friendship is not defined by real or online conceptualization. The emerging reality is this difference, this distinction between “real” and “online” doesn’t matter anymore. At the very least, it’s mattering less and less. As the online world blurs into and becomes the real world, friends of various natures are becoming, well, friends. Meeting in-person, though something that is still truly valuable, becomes a method of communication as opposed to a defining characteristic.”

My personal epiphany is that online relationships can be just as ‘real’ as  analog ones because increasingly people are making their ‘real selves’ available online.

In a NYT article, “The Many Faces of You“, Claire McCain Miller explains that she has multiple online personalities, each appropriate to different audiences. The article goes on to point out that as offline social lives have evolved to become more segmented so have our online lives. Facebook’s move to ‘groups’ is in part a reflection of this compartmentalization.  The person I reveal on Twitter is not the same one I reveal to close friends. But my curated identity on Twitter is just as real and authentic as that I have with friends I meet. And increasingly these worlds are coinciding.