In recent days, I have found myself spending a little more time on Hive, and the other day I spent a fair chunk of time looking at my connections. My "friends list," if you wile or whatever you want to call it... followers; every social network seems to have its own terminology.
Do you ever wonder what happens, when a person has been an active contributor, and then suddenly stops, one day? Stops, never to return? Stops, and there's no drama, no fanfare... they go from 100 to zero overnight. Including the fact that they no longer respond to email or Discord messages?
Where do people go?
Is it just a matter of boredom, or did they end up in "that place" where orphaned socks and several of my old wallets now live? (If that's the case, please send them back to me....)
Of course, "random disappearances" isn't just about Hive, or social networks... people vanish all the time. Not long ago, someone I've known in the world of the web for more than 20 years suddenly "vanished;" this after we'd been exchanging emails an average of once or twice a week, for all that time.
Do we just grow bored with each other, and with what we're doing?
And since the web can be such a superficial connection, do we find it easier to just "go away," than if the relationship carried over into physical space? A sort of "I'm not beholden to you because we've never met" rationale.
I know that I periodically reach a point at which I grow tired of "reaching out," and realize that if I didn't do the reaching; if I didn't take that "first step" for the 49th time, there would be nothing there. Are we really that thinly connected? Would most people rather just be alone?
I chuckle to myself as I realize this is the exact opposite of some of the pesky sales emails I get! Will they ever go away?
Do you ever wonder what happens to Hive communities that go from flourishing with 1000's of subscribers to virtually dead, overnight?
Do you ever wonder how many people actually visit community pages, other than to sign up, or to unsubscribe?
As I write these words, I allegedly have 5,177 followers on Hive. I'd be willing to bet that 95% of them are no longer active. I wonder where they went, and why they went. Was using the site just too difficult? That might explain a few of them... but what about the people who were really active?
I guess it's all a bit of a mystery, and all we can do is file it away under "unanswered questions!
It's funny how often the strength of a place is also its weakness.
Hive offers this marvelous privacy and anonymity, but at the same time that leaves us completely unable to follow up with anyone we're actually a little worried about... because there's no sending DMs here.
Not that that would make a difference, but at least we could say "I tried!"
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Created at 2024-05-21 02:03 PDT
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It's a fascinating and somewhat eerie thought, isn't it? How someone can be a daily part of your digital life one moment and then just vanish the next.
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One thing I have always known is that it is good to check on people when you notice that they are not online or no more active. Some people may be going through real life situations and we never can tell. Also, some people may be dead which is really sad and the saddest thing is that we tend to forget those people like they never existed and we won’t even know they died
I'm one of those who disappeared. Life got busy and online life is time-consuming. I chose to spend that time in person. Even so, the intention was to come back online and interact again with the online community. Then life got busier. I wrote a draft post last year in October and am just this week getting to finishing it. I wonder if those who were once so active have similar reasoning. Or maybe they found other platforms to fill their time or just maybe they put their electronics down. Putting the device down allows the eyes to look up. Who knows where that could lead them?!
I’ve often wondered what happened to the people I had enjoyed reading and conversing with. Like you, I have no idea what happened….