A very social experiment!

More and more these days we hear how as a society we're becoming more and more detached from our real world and spending more and more time in online communities, online games, social networking and spending less time in our real communities and with the people around us. Well I was on twitter today( See what I mean! ) and I thought to myself, we follow all theses people and all theses people follow us but how many of them have you actually said "Hello" to? So then I thought to myself, I wonder what will happen if I say "Hello" to everyone I follow and who follows me, so instead of wondering about it, I did it!

I wondered what would happen, Are we friendlier online talking to people we hardly know or even complete strangers? or can we be just as distant and aloof? In a way twitter is possibly one of the worst or possibly best places to try this after all where else do we stalk  follow celebrities and their like, living vicariously through them but I thought what I have got to lose apart from maybe all my followers for filling up their timeline with my little experiment!

Little did I know when I started that it would be such an arduous task and how many times I'd end up in Twitter Jail!

So I follow 1036 people and as I write this I have 362 followers, since I started my little project 2 days ago, yes its taken 2 days to complete, I've lost quite a few and I've gained quite a few followers but it's been fun, interesting and I was actually surprised at how many people did respond back, I had no negative comments and obviously not everyone responded but I had some lovely conversations( you know who you are ) and I enjoyed being social on what is after all a social arena, now as for who responded,  a few celebrities responded more than I actually thought would ,  I don't blame those that didn't respond they probably
think I'm a mad stalker type fan but a few other thoughts crossed my mind are they perhaps too full of their own importance to say Hi to us normal folk? Are they too busy? Are they worried about forming a relationship with a 'mere mortal'? Do they think that if perhaps they respond to one they would have to respond to all or can they simply just not be bothered to reply?! But then again that can be said for everyone, I think I might be a little dubious about a complete stranger saying Hello!


But after all that the results are in! after saying Hello to all those  people, It taking 2 days, ending up in Twitter jail not once, not twice but 8 you heard it 8 times and developing what I think is repetitive strain injury (seriously my wrists and fingers ache)  270 people responded to my friendly 'Hello',  of those 23 of those were well known celebrities, stars, authors , should I name drop? not sure at the moment as I feel if I name one I should name them all and would that bore you? seriously you tell me?  Quite a few were people who tweet on behalf of their companies and it showed their human side not just the promotional side of the company which I thought was lovely! I also had 10 direct messages and started 23 conversations with lovely people with whom I hadn't previously spoken and one invite to come and have a cup of tea!


And like any other good experiment, here is my conclusion.............. It is easier for people to talk online or by text without that face to face contact, people for the most part are friendly and perhaps we should learn to say "Hello" a little more often online and in our communities! what's the worse that can happen? people might think you're insane and walk on by or ignore you online but you might make someone smile , you might brighten someones day, who knows you might even make a new friend!

So Hello World , lets make it a friendlier place! Now its your turn , go on you know you want to!