My biggest quarrel with LinkedIn isn’t its confusing interface. It’s not the number of emails I get from them, urging me to congratulate the peer I haven’t talked to in years on their work anniversary. It isn’t even the fact that the default setting is to notify others when you accidentally creeped on their page. It’s the fact that the act of what should be called “following” someone, is called “connecting”. It’s the fact that everyone, including me, aims to get “500+ connections” shown on their profile, even if the majority of those connections are from robots.
One of the first things I learned at the exclusive McCombs School of Business was that 70% of jobs were found from networking. The day after that class, I gained thirty new requests to connect on LinkedIn.
To me, this doesn’t equal the narrative of being a young adult. The narrative that encourages us to learn and make mistakes. To find out what we like and don’t like. To live without walking on eggshells. By stressing the importance of connections, we’re teaching our children to “be nice! Who knows if that person will be your boss one day!” And while that may very well be true and serve as a wakeup call for some to exercise compassion, I am not at ease with this being the motivation for friendship.
So, you know your classmate’s name, hometown, major, past internships, and future career goals? Do you know what makes them smile, what they would be doing if money didn’t matter, where their favorite place on campus is, or anything about them that they wouldn’t share at a networking dinner? The emphasis on making connections in college has taken the humanity out of making friends and replaced it with pressure. We’re under pressure to not provoke or anger anyone, to not stand up for ourselves and our beliefs for the sake of what could be a connection.
What if I have to call them up in a year and ask for a job? What if in thirty years my child needs a job? We are sacrificing our self-dignity for the idea that we have to be amicable with each other for our own self-serving interests. Oftentimes, I’ll sit at a table full of people who I’m unconvinced actually like each other, and this concerns me. If this was the last supper, each and every person may as well be Judas.
Would we rather have everyone be nice but occasionally insincere, or just have everyone be closed off and honest? I don’t think the answer is one of “either or”. We’re able to love others — I’m just asking for it to be genuine. And most of the time, it’s not genuine. The number of times I’ve seen my peers smile and wave at someone, expressing how much they “just need to hangout soon”, then for the unsuspecting person to leave and the real truth to come out. “She’s so annoying, but we’re in the same org, so I have to be nice.” Since when was being nice something that we simply have to do? Please, don’t be nice for my sake — or anyone’s for that matter. Be nice because it’s something we can choose to do.
I don’t want to network. I don’t want to take part in the same meaningless conversations, plastered with forced smiles and courtesy laughs. I don’t want to be a part of your network. I don’t want your connection. I just want your company.
