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I have been attempting to change some of my social networking habits lately. One of the things I have decided that needed to change was my use of that button which gives me an all too easy way to tell the poster, "Yes, I read your post. Yes, I was somewhere between slightly amused and having an epiphany. No, I cannot be bothered to do more than a single click in response."

On Google+ this is the "+1" button and on Facebook the counterpart is the "Like" button. Pretty much every other social network has one too. Often a star or a heart. They all function the same though: confirmation without engagement.

I do not think that I am saying that the confirmation without engagement (CWE) button is necessarily a bad thing. I know that if someone pushes that button on something I post, that confirmation is useful to me.

I am not saying that anyone else should stop using it or that I necessarily will forever, although I may. This is a personal thing for me. I feel that I have gotten into a habit of using that button lazily when I actually could contribute and engage with whomever is posting the content and that I want to change that. So for now at least, when I have the urge to hit the CWE button, I am forcing myself to say something. Sometimes that something will be, "good stuff", or something to that effect. More often, I hope, it will be something with contribution or engagement.
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