I’ve been thinking a lot about social media lately. I think about how it has set the barriers of entry effectively to zero (a good thing if you’re trying to break into the market), how we use it or don’t use it and why, how it impacts the business of publishing and is reshaping it in some drastic ways. We rely on it, use it to connect and build brands faster than ever before, and when the machine’s wheels grind slow, well, just look what happened with the recent Twitter outages.

Social network building has become a big part of what I do. And on a bigger scale it has become the primary medium through which business is evolving and through which we connect on a personal level. It’s all about friends, tweets, blogs, DM’s, unique visitors and whether or not you’re focused on SEO and you community influence. But for all the upside–and there is a lot, mind you–there is also downside. There always is. Single-sided coins are a myth.

As I have been going through my week I’ve found myself fixated on this corner of my life and wondered, “Why is having more Twitter followers or Facebook friends really important? Is it important at all? And why do I obsess (let’s call it what it is) about having other people like me and care about what I have to say?” These are tough questions because if I answer them honestly, which I’ve tried to do, the answers may uncover some pretty twisted priorities or worse…a crooked soul in need of straightening.

As I’ve thought about it, two things have become clear in my own experience:

Technology feeds my chronic appetite for independence.

You don’t die in America; you underachieve. It’s all about hyper-independence, self-help, self-fulfillment. Self, self, self. Technology enables that “selfness” by giving us a sort of omniscience unlike any other generation before us. That’s why we love it. It makes us more god-like (for good or ill). Think about that for a minute. Don’t have an answer to something? Google it. Go to Wikipedia. At my fingertips I have the collective intelligence of thousands of years of human history, millions of facts, and the answers to almost any question I could possibly ask. It is my private Tree of Knowledge, my penthouse suite in the Tower of Babel that kisses the clouds.

But the problem with knowledge is that you never quite have your fill. The same with independence. Like money, he who has it and worships it never has enough of it. If not properly managed, it will be the very thing that enslaves you. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying technology is evil. It’s not; it’s amoral. It just has to be used wisely.

Technology gives me relationship without commitment.

.I love Facebook because I can be your friend without being your friend. If I want, I can hide my challenges, struggles, and secrets from you behind a veneer of pithy status updates and smiling vacation photos. And you can do the same with me. It’s like a first date–all you really see is the best version of me because I’m trying to impress you. And the more the merrier because I don’t really have to commit to anything.

Now I realize that some people have deep, meaningful relationships that were cultivated online. They are, I believe, the minority and have learned to be in authentic community with others. The rest are posturing for reasons of self-esteem and wanting to belong, not for actual community (which is a lot of work). It’s not the American way. It’s a sort of relational consumerism, like a trade or transaction. It’s friendship lite. One calorie. And after you’ve engaged in it for awhile, your heart begins re-conditioning itself, training itself for that kind of relationship.

So now the question is, “What do I do?” I’ve been thinking about his a lot as well, and I believe the answer is straightforward: redemption. I’m a participant in redeeming the creation. We all are. So, I think that means that figuring out how to replace independence with interdependence should be my concern. And maybe I should focus on quality of relationships and not quantity. It may mean that my total impression statistics or unique visitor stickiness aren’t all that important. And I’m pretty sure it means incorporating the idea (discipline?) of sabbath with these tools of which I’ve been made a steward. Learning to say “no” and “not yet” or even “that’s enough” is tough to do, but it’s necessary.

It’s a challenge, no doubt. But I believe it’s worth figuring out especially if you want to be in entertainment (which is what fiction is). Going forward, artists will be responsible for more and more of their own marketing and fanbase building. Knowing how to handle the process with a wise heart and skilled hand should be high on the priority list. It is on mine now.