Strangers are good for you

Just recently I have noticed that Facebook has become a little – how can I put this – unsurprising. The reason is obvious. I am selective about whom I befriend. Twitter by comparison is a hot bed of casual liaisons full of people who, whether genuine friends or cyber acquaintances, are allowing me to experience the joy of discovery that can come by getting involved in the thoughts and lives of strangers.

I’ve always been a bit prone to hanging out with alternative types but I think these newer and more unconventional acquaintances do offer the opportunity to expand our creative potential.

By all accounts human imagination is a rather predictable thing. In study after study, people, when asked to free associate, are very conventional in their responses. The word “blue” prompts answers like “sky”, “sea” etc Apparently, this is because language shapes our choices and our language is full of cliches. Someone has to create dissent and, in familiar social circles where all present have connections or stakes, this is harder to come by.

Dissent is really about surprise. Imaginations are fired up by encounters we didn’t expect. In fact if you go to art galleries and museums you will know this. These places often make us reconsider things. This is the value of Twitter. It’s not to find another stereotype of an arty soul to reinforce a social view of oneself or some kind of comfort zone – that’s what facebook does. Twitter is to find something we wouldn’t normally interact with that can inform and get us to reconsider. I think newspapers used to do this once.