When I was a moderator for tagfam.org, I was privy to internal research that the founder had done. About 20 percent of members were active on a regular basis and about 10 percent more were occasionally active. The rest lurked and just read.

People can readily navigate a community of about 150 members. On two different forums, once current membership got past about 750 people, things started splintering off into new groups. Do the math: 20 percent of 750 is 150.

Above that figure of 150, the way people handle social interaction is with formal processes and protecting their privacy. They try to limit what they share about themselves on a "need to know" basis. Some people are better at this than others.

This is where my life got very painful when I first went online: I didn't know how to do that. I had never really interacted with "the public" though I thought I had. I had been a homemaker and before that a student. I knew lots of people, but those people were mostly family and friends. I had extremely limited experience with customers, bosses, etc. and didn't really know how to be selective about the details I shared with an eye towards protecting myself and this went weird places.

To remedy that, I have had to consciously think about such things a whole lot. I've even collected data at times and so forth.

Many people are not super clear about such distinctions. If they grew up in a big city, maybe they don't readily share intimate details with anyone and don't really think about how much they leave out. If they grew up in a village, maybe they make no real distinction between friends and strangers and just let it all hang out and don't understand when it comes back to bite them.

A lot of the problems we have currently online exist because the internet puts us rather unnaturally in touch with a much broader selection of people than in-person interactions are likely to for most people. It's harder to say things online that won't have someone up in arms because you stepped on their toes without realizing it.

I've been trying to sort out how to interact positively with people on Twitter (and in other online spaces) for a long time, people I may not know at all but may have interests in common with. I think a lot of our online social media issues ultimately will be solved -- if they get solved at all -- by working on this issue.