Surprise!!! Social Media (and Life) Is NOT A Competition

Spend a few minutes browsing through recent headlines about social media and you will most likely be left with the impression that all of the networks are in a fierce competition with each other. Facebook is the king, with more paticipants than any other. Twitter recently boasted that its users are posting an average of 50 million updates a day. Google Buzz burst onto the scene and the pundits immediately pitted it against the others in comparisons and contrasts. The list goes on and on, with countless also-rans and quickly-developed newcomers waiting in the wings, all hoping to compete for your membership and usage.

Zoom in and take a closer look within the individual social networks and you will witness users clamoring for significant increases in followers and friends, regularly checking numbers and trying a myriad of techniques to grow their counts to what those who are paying attention might call ‘respectable’. Tools that rate, rank and grade feed the frenzy and give us all the ability to measure our success in order to insure that we are doing things ‘correctly’.

A few weeks back I got involved in a conversation on Twitter in which another user (identity to remain anonymous) was tweeting complaints to TwitterGrader (a tool that ranks users based on an algorithm that goes beyond simple numbers). This person was upset because they have almost twice as many followers and updates as I do, yet TwitterGrader listed me in the top 5 in my city while leaving him somewhere further down the list. I told him it really didn’t matter and that this whole thing is not a competition, to which he responded vehemently, “EVERYTHING is a competition! LIFE is a competition!”

Really? Is that the world we live in?

Competition can be healthy. It can drive us to become better at the things we do and stimulate innovation and inspiration. But when competition and comparison become the primary motivation behind our existence in any context, they become a dangerous and potentially deadly force that, when peeled back, reveals the depths of insecurities that bind and can eventually destroy an individual, relationships and society as a whole.

Why does our society choose to immediately assume the course of comparison and subsequent competition? This is a question that I believe needs to be examined and a methodology that could be changed, but it can only be done by the uprising of the individual. Unfortunately the current majority contributes to and is influenced by the competitive nature rather than questioning and rebuking it, so it would appear a hopeless cause to appeal to those who desire true independent thought and a thriving society of individuality. Still, I am an idealist, so I have to at least try and believe that there are others who would take steps toward the true freedom that can be found when comparison is set aside and competition is reprioritized to a healthy level.

When Google Buzz came out a couple weeks ago, the media dubbed it a potential Twitter and Facebook “killer”, and for days everyone – including me – talked about the tool’s various elements and how they compared to the “competition”. Finally, it appears even Google tired of being placed in a competition they never asked for, and came out with a statement that essentially removed themselves from the comparisons and proclaimed their understanding of Buzz as its own individual niche, rather than yet another similar status update tool.

What a concept! Standing up as an individual. Producing an original idea. Taking an approach on a path that perhaps has never been travelled exactly the same way before. It is this spirit that births greatness. It is the mother of invention and the motivation for genuine creativity. It is the power of freedom laced with high potential for failure, but isn’t a life without risk and possibility of disappointment really just plain boring?

I’m not suddenly singing the praises of Google Buzz. Don’t get me wrong. But I am very pleased to hear Google stand up to others’ attempts to place them in a cage bout with other networks in the social media realm, taking hold of and proclaiming their own ideas and hopes and thought processes for Google Buzz. Isn’t that something we all should be doing?

Take a look around. Where in your life are you comparing yourself to others? I would be willing to bet for most of us the answer is a number we find ourselves suddenly uncomfortable with.

Examine your social media usage. How many times a day or a week do you check to see how many friends or followers you have on your network of choice? When you meet someone new in social media, do you classify them by the amount of followers or perceived influence they have? How often do you use some tool to check your ranking amongst the millions of others in social media circles?

I am guilty on all counts. Far more than I care to admit. But I guess the first step is admitting you have a problem, right? The second step is to determine what we are going to do to begin changing this state of affairs.

Facebook and Twitter and Buzz and Flickr and Digg and all the others are competing for us. They each want us to update our status on their network more often than we do anywhere else. Why? So they can add us to the multitude of numbers that eventually translate to revenue, and the better they are than their ‘competitors’, the more income they can generate. Is there anything wrong with that in our capitalistic society? Not in my opinion. But I absolutely refuse to be pandered to and ‘targeted’ solely for some organization to add me to their numbers. You and I are more than numbers, and we have brains that enable us to be more than lemmings or sheep that follow mindlessly whenever those with a bullhorn of influence shout directions.

YOU are an influencer, if you choose to be. All it takes to be a leader is to have someone following you. Our modern society gives each and every one of us the ability to be leaders and influencers, yet for some reason so many choose to relinquish this right and move to the sway of the masses. Will you accept the challenge to break free from the bondage of comparison and speak your mind, your passion, your individuality in a way that contributes to the evolution of our society, both online and off?

One could say that comparison and competition date all the way back to the original sin. According to the story, Adam and Eve were tempted by the thought that they could become better than they were – that they could be gods instead of just ordinary humans. They compared themselves to another and decided they were not good enough if they settled for staying the way they were. But who they were was what they were created to be. Who they gave in to trying to become was a fatal, comparison-driven decision that changed the course of their lives forever.

Can you stop looking around at others and find fulfillment in who you are as an individual? Can you embrace your character and begin pursuing your own dreams without glancing in the rearview or to either side for some measurement of success or approval? Can you identify yourself as a leader and influence those around you to do the same, until we look up one day to realize that we are surrounded by leaders who each have a significant, powerful and irreplaceable role to play that contributes to the evolution of our society?

It seems a tall order. But, by comparison, isn’t it far better than the alternative?