I noticed that Facebook are looking for beta testers, and the requirement is that you ask a provocative question and then write a ‘detailed, articulate answer.’ So, I gave it a bash:
Q: Why is the concept of symbiosis important for social media?
A: Symbiosis, in its broadest definition, is the relationship between different organisms, dependent on each other for survival. It can take many forms, and the relationships possible are as varied as those between circles of friends.
For myself, I find this concept most beautifully expressed in the relationship between flowers and bees: Flowers, bright and fragrant, attract the bees. The bees, through their interactions with the flowers, help them reproduce. The bees on the other hand, can make honey from the collected pollen, and this becomes their primary food source. If it weren’t for bees, there would be no flowers, and vice-versa!
When the natural world is put under the lens of social networking, with its emphasis on connection and sharing, symbiosis no longer appears as just a part of it. It becomes nature itself. The world outside is shaped by the density of its connections, from the trees and their micro-systems of animals and fungi, to the prominence of grain and grape based alcohols that make it possible to forget our detached, metallic world, and keep us from passing the borderline into crisis.
However, in the face of crisis, a great thing has happened. The concept of symbiosis has begun to permeate the new cybernetic world we live in, and the realisation that sharing is the highest pleasure we can grasp has literally swarmed into the social sphere. The barriers of communication are rapidly being broken and dissolved. Before long, understanding between people will be a given - not an ideal.
As optimistic as this is, it still doesn’t answer the question. Why is symbiosis important for social media? Well, to state the obvious, all beings are unique. No matter how hard we can try to sell it, conformity just seems to be a dirty concept. This is natural. Density of connection relies on variation. In the online world, one service will not cut it. For it to accommodate humanity in its entirety would be impossible. Facebook has, for many reasons, become the primary social media in our new world. In my opinion, the main reason is this: It allows for interaction with other social media services - and applications - that help the user develop their experience to suit them. I perceive this as the beginning of symbiosis in the cybernetic realm.
However, symbiosis is concerned with mutual survival. Does Facebook concern itself with the survival of its competitors? Does it still consider them as competitors?
If our online world, experienced most richly through social media, is to become a real world, with the definition and detail of our immediate experience in nature, social media will need to become symbiotic. Control is a naive concept. Companies involved in social media will need to re-imagine themselves as organisms, and their competitors as partners. Not in the business sense, but in their ability to deliver their own cyber niche to the best of their capability, while allowing the user to access all others with the same avatar.
In conclusion, symbiosis is important for social media because it gives it an understanding of the natural world that it can begin to translate into the cyber realm. It allows us to see the benefit of relationships based on sharing and community, and not those built on competition and callousness. The boundaries between us are dissolving, and with this comes the need to rely on each other, to trust in our friends and have faith in our elected superiors. Only symbiosis can do this; and in our brave new world, only social media can begin to implement it.