Dr. Tessa West argues that social media followers don't replace real connection. People can tell when you're using chatbots instead of talking to them, and no AI will pass that test. Genuine relationships are what actually matter.
In a universe where social media has allowed us to reach broader audiences, the ability to authentically connect seems dramatically reduced.
Yeah, I think I still, I mean, I'm old school. I'm one of those people who I study interpersonal interaction and the boomers have something on us, which is they sort of hate this transactional nature of networking and developing relationships. You still do need to do some of that. And if that means DMing someone and, you know, having a text conversation on that medium, that's fine. But I think just having followers, people who follow your work, isn't enough. You still need to set up a couple of those 5-minute face-to-face conversations. There's just nothing to replace it. And, you know, we've been trying to find ways of replacing that for a really long time. And we know that that social connection is still essential and you can't outsource You can't outsource it to chatbot. You can't have generative AI do the communicating for you. People can tell the difference. You won't pass the Turing test. They'll be weirded out by it. And so be careful of those kind of outsourcing interpersonal connection to another person, to generative AI or whatever. There's no kind of magical equation that will get you more followers that will necessarily convert to the kind of success you want. You do actually have to form those actual human relationships. So I'm kind of staunchly in that corner against sort of opting out of any kind of human connection or just trying to outsource it just in an effort to get more followers.
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