“The bad folks take advantage of the fact the we have no shared social fabric. Can you, Erik, take advantage of that and build one where space is made?”

An answer: to find the right future role of the virtual social communities. The question above was raised during a discussion with a friend the other day about the social status of the world today. The friend happens to just have started a blog – http://floteson.blogspot.com.

The shattered discussion I had with my friend in between work and instant messaging focused primarily on the social vacuum many people feel today. We are constantly seeking for self-identity in this great world of ours. Possibly seeking the meaning of our lives?

My friend may has a very cynical view of our society, but he encapsulates it so well – “A society as culturally and socially dismantled as ours is ripe for reformation…” People’s frustration is generally increasing in this world. We tend to sense a lack of ability to influence. We are starting to feel more and more anonymous. Who sees me? What role am I playing here?

There is a remarkable growth of blogs and virtual social communities on the web. The need is out there, no question about it, but do the virtual social communities today really fully meet the needs of the people? I truly believe that virtual social communities here can be used to really make a difference.

Esther Dyson further exemplifies the nature of a real social network in reality in an article on http://www.silicon.com: “Take this typical, true story (fake names). I recently had lunch with Bill and decided to introduce him to another friend, Will. Like many people, Will has changed jobs recently, so I got his latest email address from the cc: list of a message about a board meeting we both attended recently (forget the address book!).

Now that’s a social network – a small one, but a real one. I wouldn’t declare that network to the world, though it’s publicly disclosed, and I haven’t asked all the people on that board to be my friends. I wouldn’t consider passing on third-party requests to them, but I might – as with Will – introduce them to someone else I know personally, where I see a good fit. That is, they don’t meet some stranger’s search criteria; rather, they both meet my criteria.

It’s not just ‘use our service to communicate with your own network’, but (implicitly) ‘join our service to make new friends and valuable contacts’.”  Right or wrong, this can inhibit the true capacity of the social impact. Furthermore, virtual social communities by definition tend to best appeal to people with technical background, who are familiar with a computerized environment.  As the commercial interest grows, the social impact becomes obscure.

What role does the virtual social communities play?
I have been around the web for quite a long time, both as a user and as a web developer. Even when the web was still very young, I explored the social parts of the web, which then primarily were chat rooms, and when the social communities rapidly developed I joined quickly. I had a great time there and met a lot of people.

Why did I turn to the web? A great part of it was that it was new and exciting. It was easy, fast and direct. You met a lot of people and you meet them fast. (Fast is the keyword of our time, isn’t it?) Some say you get quantity before quality. Partly that is of course true, but I have met some of my closest friends via the web. Some parts can also be an escape from reality for just a moment. Social life on the web is much easier than in the real world. If you do not like a person on MSN, block that person. Problem solved, or…

What are the effects – downs and ups?
Inside the communities you build a reputation and get recognition for your actions within it. People, who are quite anonymous in the real world, become people with (extreme) power. Moderators have for instance the power to change messages, ban people from parts or the whole community, and appoint new moderators. You can create a online-based, fictional power structure. Is that what we wanted? Like stated earlier; frustration, anonymity and the sense of lack of influence in real life is what we tried to solve when we turned to social networks online, but current evaluations show that we have transformed all those unwanted phenomena to spheres within the virtual communities! But hey, who doesn’t want to be the commander in chief? To taste the feeling of being the influencing factor, if so just for a moment…

On the other hand, you can say that people in virtual social communities often seek the anonymity of the web. Quoting my friend again: “You would think that a person would use the internet for shameless honesty, as so you can be totally unaccountable for what you say, but that’s not the case.” Maybe we believe that we are only playing a role in a play… The people that we are talking to are not real…

Virtual social communities are very common in my home country Sweden. People are very active within them, yet the social environment inside seems to be quite abusive. People harass each other, and there is a rather large emphasis on sexual objectification. People can feel equally as bullied online, as in real world, even thoughno one could tell their true identity. Strange, hey? Probably not. We are still humans when we are in the virtual social communities, even though our identities may be unknown or hidden.

Especially youths are further and further drawn to the computers and the web. They interact through instant messaging, social networks and now they are even start to socialize via cell phones due to the rapid growth of cell phone industry. Of course there are benefits, but do we really want to live in a world where the social interaction primarily takes place in the quite un-personal, virtual world of the web?

My friend illustrated this by: “Now, whatever you call it, the personal sphere is totally encroached by politics, by media, by information. Romeo sends Juliet a SMS: "Don’t drink the poison! LOL, Romeo." “

This is however not a generational problem at all. Another friend told me, freely quoted: “I would rather have this discussion through instant messaging than here. I feel stressful doing this here.” Of course he has every right to feel that, but do we want people to in general go to the computers and have discussions rather than in the reality, face to face. Personally I do not.

The influence of virtual social communities will continue to grow even in the future, and the reasons are simple. My friend described the need like this: “… unless you own Viacom, if you want to reach the hearts and minds of millions of people… you either need to storm the White House, hand out free baseball caps… or create something out of all this wreckage.”

I believe in constructive thinking and solutions. An (virtual) environment where you feel responsibilities the same way as in the real world, and realise that moving the interaction to the web by itself can never solve root of the social problem is a way to go. But a virtual environment is still a tool, nothing else. A tool created by humans for humans. We may have to create a better tool and also learn how to use it, but it can be of help, no question about it.

I however do not like to live only in the virtual world, describing myself with emotion icons… The emotion icon for a coffee can never substitute a coffee in real life. Sitting on the lawn sipping a fresh cup of coffee laughing, hear the other person’s laughter and see the other person in the eyes…