Is Social Media Making Us More Tribal?

Great article. I think the concept of tribes has always been embedded in us since our ancestors started coming together to form communities. We have this innate ability to follow and join others with similar interests. Using social media has allowed our tribes to expand from local to global and & makes it easier to move from one tribe to the next & still interact with both.

Jeff,
This is 100% the way forward, especially for someone like me-an independent artist. It”s not a new concept, but one that can be easily maintained and built via social networks-Facebook, twitter, etc.
Other forms have always existed. Drums beating, smoke signals, telephone………now we have a better way to quickly get the tribe moving.
I love it.
Kevin

I liked the article, but have a question for Mr. Arauz and you and your readers, which is “Why are cooperation, organization and collective action treated as new methods of achieving results (including creating/interacting with new tribes?).” There’s nothing new to any of these interactions…the only “new” component is the current social networking apparatus (fb, twitter, etc.) and even these aren’t really new…and those are only variations on communications (primarily involving the internet) which we’ve been experimenting with now for more than a generation.

Not, I guess, that it matters, but I wonder if people think, when they answer your question “How are you engaging with your tribe?” that they are engaging in much the same way they always have? Or does the addition of facebook and twitter make them feel that their interaction has changed appreciably?

I like the possibilities and some of the conveniences offered by the new social media and attendant opportunities for social networking, but I worry about what we’re giving up for those advantages. I will worry even more if people unthinkingly give credit to social media for the achievements that would have resulted from their interaction without said media. It’s not fb or twitter that makes a tribe. It’s you. Me. Each of us.

Thanks for this article! Besides throughly enjoying it personally, I felt it complemented a recent presentation I have completed for postgrade research on alternative economics theory at the University of Auckland. I feel there is some real key insights we could all learn, but particularly from a organisational behaviour and leadership perspective from the indigenous communities value and market structures. Being in New Zealand, the research I was focusing for this was the early colonial interactions and power structures in the Maori culture in the context of entrepreneurial behaviour and Entrepreneurship in a young New Zealand culture (my presentation notes for reference- just in case anyone is interested.. can be found http://url.assistnz.com/indigenous)
Being that I consult with Kiwi organisations primairily in the areas of Social Media Planning & Policy, I have first hand seen some of the biggest impacts of social media & Facebook in particular (which is the popular medium by far in our part of the world) appear to be corresponding with those tribal social structures. I would be interested in knowing if others would also percieve some potentially valuable in overlap the considerations of indigenous value structures and social media in current economies. Particularly in terms of how business structures and processes could be designed more appropriately considering these two insights?

This post resonated with me. I think social media is making us more tribal. I have already met like-minded individuals on Twitter that I expect I’ll be in contact with for a very long time. It’s fascinating to me that traditional tribes were geographically/genetically based and new tribes are virtual and global.