LinkedIn: More ‘tribal’ than connection? – When blocking is your friend

Is LinkedIn becoming business Facebook or Twitter?

Linkedin is an invaluable source of business connection, that is certainly true. I guess that doesn’t mean its users need to be reasonable, balanced, or open though, it just means they connect with people like them. It doesn’t mean there ‘must’ be a forum for debate it just means ‘connection’. Connection is a function of opinions and tribal tendencies and that seems to have bubbled to the surface of late.

Lately I’ve noticed an increasing boldness in posts where people are wont to engage in a ‘pile on’, especially when it comes to expressing political leanings. It seems that there is a decreasing opportunity to have a debate or offer a contrary view without a stream of people telling you ‘what you are’. I know there is a view that we should ‘keep talking’ (more jaw-jaw and less war-war, to quite Churchill) but I have blocked a lot more people recently.

It’s a pity. However, maybe they are doing as LinkedIn intended and ‘connecting’ with people who are reactionary and forcefully opinionated and that’s what they like? They are ‘connecting’ after-all.

I think I remember; he says risking a chorus of ‘you idiot’ correction, that LinkedIn was for the purpose of being able to link to a person you don’t know through a person you do, or at least have a connection to. In recent times it’s become a platform for political posturing and flag-waving. There are an increasing number of memes creeping in (which I instantly react to by hitting the ‘I don’t want to see this’ button) or ‘surveys’ (which get the same treatment, since they are not attempts at research, just click-bait).

For the record, I like two kinds of responses and they have one thing in common, they say ‘why’, not just an opinion and a insult (however veiled). I like people who agree with me or are congratulatory – who doesn’t and, I like people that don’t agree with me. Recently several people, to whom I am grateful, have caused me to either stop and think, question myself and realise I’m either wrong or I didn’t see an alternative or, make me go back and make a more reasonable edit to something I’ve said (the latter has been me thinking ‘did I just behave the way I don’t like other people behaving?’).

For everyone else, if your sole intention is to signal your political views and garner favour from your fellows then as far as I’m concerned, you’re pointless from the point of view of being connected with or engaging with. I don’t mind people’s political views at all, so long as they are open to a debate and not a childish name caller or worse, someone who is a childish name caller that is unwittingly engaged in a severe case of projection.

So, blocking is my friend I’m afraid. I will help anyone in a professional capacity, I am trained in ‘unconditional positive regard’ and person centred psychology. I help addicts and SMEs alike on a voluntary basis. I hope I’m known as a caring person but honestly, when it comes to a public slanging match or as I say, a pollical ‘pile-on’, no thanks.