Umair Haque, who has a talent to write provocative-sounding texts, has recently derided social media in a text called «The Social Media Bubble». His hypothesis:

Despite all the excitement surrounding social media, the Internet isn't connecting us as much as we think it is. It's largely home to weak, artificial connections, what I call thin relationships.

These introductory sentences already reveal a fundamental problem with many critiques of the internet or digital technology: unrealistic expectations - and then disappointment when they're not met. How much, exactly, did Haque think the internet would connect us? And what he calls "thin relationships" are, in my view, nothing else than the "weak ties" that play a crucial role in forming social networks.

Haque then goes on to explain that, while relationships and friends have "nominally" multiplied, trust in the world has not been increased greatly. Now, it is difficult to assess if trust has risen (Haque circumvents this difficult problem by just completely ignoring it), but there is also a semantic problem here: We use words like "relationship" and "friend" to describe what are ultimately completely new forms of communication and social interaction. And while semantics are hugely important, I believe it is a mistake to draw the conclusion that "friendship" as a concept is changing altogether because the connections on Facebook are all called "friends", even the ones who don't really fit into that description. I just think people are smarter than that.

Next in Haque's panopticon of misguided cultural pessimism is the disappointment that the internet has not removed gatekeepers, but just installed new ones. I'd argue that things are at least not that clear-cut. Haques problem, again, is that he attributes a normative power to a technology. However, the technology cannot be inherently "good" or "bad". And while it is true that the internet can help authoritarian governments control the people, it can also have opposite effects. As for corporate communication, the desperation with which many companies are trying to engage in "real dialogue" with their stakeholders online is for me at least a sign that some gatekeepers have indeed been removed.

Finally, Haque brings out the elitist argument: "Farmville ain't exactly Casablanca." As if low-quality hadn't existed before the internet. The assertion that Farmville is "socially useless" is downright stupid. True, it doesn't feed the children of the world; but stating that games, online or not, do not have a social function is to ignore popular culture altogether.

Haques demand that the internet foster meaningful relationships is right to the point. But his critique is misguided, partly because he sees "thin" and meaningful relationships as two mutually exclusive, dichotomic possibilities. But the line between them is blurry, and it's absolutely possible that a thin relationship "matures" to become a meaningful one. But the main problem with Haques text is that he - as many critics - seems to think that the internet is downright bad and evil just because it didn't make everything better.

I for my part do truly believe that the internet has had many positive effects, and a few very negative ones. It's up to us to make the best of the technology available to us. So far, the signs I'm seeing are encouraging.