Connection Cubes: Sharing

Sharing. It’s the single most important reason why we engage social platforms. It’s the reason we connect to begin with.

Sharing sits squarely in the realm of high dynamism and high intimacy. Where we have high intimacy, we take time to communicate our core values. We exchange everything. Our thoughts, hopes, needs, humor, desires, hatred, frustrations and more are all on display. We do all of this in a way that confronts, challenges, and entices our friends and family.

That’s why we need so many mechanisms and tools. Photos, statuses, “likes,” tweets, email,  blogs, shared links each represent some portion of our core persona.

With all of this comes increased interaction. Dynamism goes off the scale. What’s the reason so many people become addicted to logging into and keeping abreast of Facebook? The fact that they can have controlled, persistent interactions that satisfy the human need to share information with people who will respond in kind.

Sharing is the natural response to connection.

This all said, it is also one of the most difficult connections to create. Offices and companies all over the world talk about how open and sharing their workplaces are. People will have more candid conversations with their grocery store checkout clerk than with their church friends. Why?

Part of the reason is that high intimacy requires both people to share core values openly. How do you know if the person you just ‘friended’ on Facebook is really that person? How do you know if the comments a person makes are their real views or opinions?

This comes from time and shared, common experiences. The more interaction two people have with each other increases both the likelihood and impact of value exchange.

Advertisement