I discovered today that a close friend of mine removed me off of their twitter and facebook accounts – essentially blocked me. After the initial surprise, I wondered what that meant – does it mean we are no longer friends? Should how I relate with the person change? Should I trust them less? Should I reciprocate?
I don’t think there is a ready established protocol for how to respond to such social media driven stimuli – or at least I don’t know of it. But what was inescapable to me is the gravity of it – as a statement of my relationship with the person.
As the world is still reeling from the power of social media to effect social and political change at a global level, I have a personal epiphany about social media re: personal relationships and their particular impact on interpersonal interfaces.
As I reflect, I remember a different situation recently, where a friend and his girlfriend split up and in a rage, she blocked him off Facebook. Even after reconciliation process started, when he found out about her having blocked him, that dealt the final blow to their relationship.
I don’t know yet how to think of it – how to intellectually organise my thoughts around the question of how social social media is… I’m interacting with ideas around it in my mind.