If I understand what you are saying, I think I might be able to give a personal anecdote to show that most definitely, some "friction" is required to get people organizing and socializing as they traditionally would (outside of social media), and why social media isn't enough:
In October 2017, my area was hit by the worst wildfires in California history. For days, there was no power, there was no internet (mobile or otherwise), there was no 911. We had AM/FM radio and our neighbors.
For all intents and purposes, we were back to the 1900s.
What happened? Well, people in my neighborhood (neighbors) who were all on edge - who had LARGELY ONLY EVER INTERACTED VIA SOCIAL MEDIA (myNextDoor and facebook) - suddenly found that SOCIAL MEDIA wasn't enough.
Within hours, people were organizing and talking, and sharing information in the streets. I met most of my neighbors that week that we had to go without internet access - people I have lived next to for 5 years now, but never had a conversation with. Literally everyone kept to themselves and used MyNextDoor as a proxy for traditional interaction.
Also, social media became toxic during this event - False information was spread rapidly in unofficial groups, evacuation orders which were never issued were reported as fact, etc. Our local PD ended up putting out 24x7 hourly updates to stop the flow of bad information.
TL;DR: During the October 2017 wildfires, power and internet were out for days -- the "friction" of this event (plus limited access) showed me that people in crisis / who need to organize can't do so via social media alone. Inevitably, small groups of neighbors organized physically to help ea. other out - and the disaster was the catalyst for this.
Edit 1 - Added notes on bad parts of social media during natural disaster.
PS: Apologies for the length. This was a traumatic event, and verbalizing this here has been therapeutic.
In October 2017, my area was hit by the worst wildfires in California history. For days, there was no power, there was no internet (mobile or otherwise), there was no 911. We had AM/FM radio and our neighbors.
For all intents and purposes, we were back to the 1900s.
What happened? Well, people in my neighborhood (neighbors) who were all on edge - who had LARGELY ONLY EVER INTERACTED VIA SOCIAL MEDIA (myNextDoor and facebook) - suddenly found that SOCIAL MEDIA wasn't enough.
Within hours, people were organizing and talking, and sharing information in the streets. I met most of my neighbors that week that we had to go without internet access - people I have lived next to for 5 years now, but never had a conversation with. Literally everyone kept to themselves and used MyNextDoor as a proxy for traditional interaction.
Also, social media became toxic during this event - False information was spread rapidly in unofficial groups, evacuation orders which were never issued were reported as fact, etc. Our local PD ended up putting out 24x7 hourly updates to stop the flow of bad information.
TL;DR: During the October 2017 wildfires, power and internet were out for days -- the "friction" of this event (plus limited access) showed me that people in crisis / who need to organize can't do so via social media alone. Inevitably, small groups of neighbors organized physically to help ea. other out - and the disaster was the catalyst for this.
Edit 1 - Added notes on bad parts of social media during natural disaster.
PS: Apologies for the length. This was a traumatic event, and verbalizing this here has been therapeutic.