Facebook. Twitter. Instagram. Snapchat.

There’s always something to be updated.

Something. Someone.

Friends. Family. Strangers. Data collecting bots.

From the extraordinary to the extra ordinary.

And why not? Facebook asks ‘What’s on your mind?’ and Twitter urges the user to ‘Compose a new tweet…’

In the words of Six Word Memoir’s founder Larry Smith “Everybody has a story, they just often need to be asked. And they need to be reminded that they are being heard.”

Likes and comments serve to act as reminders that the original poster is being heard.

Or so we (without a doubt all OPs of some content on the web) like to believe.

That’s not to say all those faceless post approving , commentary providing participants are just clicking their screens at random – some really do enjoy the content or feel as though something is worth of discussion. But the harsh reality is that very few people are being heard.

In 2010 Sysomos – the leading provider of social media monitoring and analytics tools maker of social media analysis tools- analyzed 1.2 billion tweets over a two-month period observing and recording the reception of tweets. The study results showed that:

-71% of all tweets produce no reaction — in the form of replies or retweets

-6% of all tweets produce a retweet

-23% of all tweets solicit replies

 

In the event of a reaction:

-96.9% of replies and 92.4% of retweets happen within the first hour

-5.97% à the chance of a retweet in or after the third hour

-2.22% likelihood of a retweet in or after the third hour

 

So why is it that we’re not being ‘heard’?

Personally, I believe it is because many of us are incredibly self centered.

Sysomos 2010 study can be seen to back up my feelings showing that ‘Only 10.7% of all tweets that generate a reply see a reply to the original reply, and only 1.53% of these conversations are three levels deep (meaning there’s a reply, a reply to the reply, and a reply to the reply of the reply)’.

As much as we desire and seek attention, we neglect to cultivate our online relationships. I know of many individuals with a Facebook friends lists with a friend counter in the quadruple digits. The same goes for Instagram and Twitter followers. Now, I don’t know about you, but I don’t have the mental or emotional capacity to foster solid relationships with over… let’s say… twenty people. Even that may be pushing it. Consequently one stops caring about their ‘friends’ and followers. Certainly they’ll like a post here and there or leave a comment on one of every twenty posts or so, but it’s hard (damned near impossibly) to actively attend to everybody submitting content while attending to other responsibilities.

So that leaves me with a question for you:

Short of cutting down on friends and followers, is there an effective and efficient way to maintain some sort of meaningful connection with one’s online peers?