Lately, I have felt that the discussions have ended and I am no longer a part of a community online. With the advent of tools like twitter and even the changes to facebook, I feel that we have reverted back to "I'm going to give you sound bites and it is up to you to listen or not. I'm not really interested in your opinion."
I felt that when the new web tools first were established (blogs, myspace, etc...) that there was a renewed engagement between people in cyberspace. Suddenly those that never had a voice were given a voice to craft their message and engage in dialogue. Time was not as much of a factor. A deeper level of understanding between writers and readers was established.
However, I currently have three facebook accounts. One is actually my daughter's, the other is just for family and friends, and the last is for students and colleagues. I post, but there is always a resounding silence after. I am sure for many of my students, I my comments are hidden. With so many comments coming in, many of them just have very superficial conversations.
Now don't get me wrong. I see a valuable service in facebook and twitter, especially when you want to communicate information to a large group of people quickly. But there is no two way communication the way a blog or a ning or even the original design of facebook allowed. And what two way communication there is usually private, so there is not the same level of community. I also feel that the people that originally embraced the Web 2.0 to give themselves a voice they never had have been pushed aside for commercial and mainstream opinion leader's use. It is a bit like starting a conversation with someone in the popular group when you were in high school and having the rest of the popular group join in and push you out to the side because you aren't part of their group.
I hope we go back to the idea of community on the web and the feeling of belonging in an online community. But I'm not sure that can happen in today's battlefield over users (how many friends can YOU collect?). What do you think? (I have a feeling without tweeting this, there will just be a big resounding "silence." Oh, well).
6 comments:
I found your blog! I subscribe through RSS so find it even if you don't tweet.
I have only been blogging for as long as I've been tweeting so the two go together for me. I let people know about my blog posts through twitter, and I am happy if they send me a message back on twitter. But I love if they leave a comment on the blog.
Interaction in any online activity is really important to me. Have a lovely weekend!
Do you find that you are "tweeting" differently than you did two or three years ago? What about the interaction on the blog?
I think what concerns me is not necessary that there is a higher use of twitter, but rather even the form of twitter has changed somewhat to more of the Web 1.0 format in which the author does not really consider the readers' interaction.
I have been reading more and more about the "new Web" moving into a Web 3.O. However, I see many using these tools more like a quicker version of Web 1.O (i.e. Neo-web 1.0) rather than something different than the Web 2.0 or original uses of the Web.
I've only been doing both since Oct 08... and I guess I mighthave changed in the way I use Twitter a bit. I have built up a sizeable network and I know they might be interested in the same things as me so I do share them. This is not the same as web 1.0 as I am filtering and sharing- which isn't just the same as the original generators of the content putting something on their webpage and publishing with no hope of feedback. A very hight percentage of my tweets are conversational too.
I guess I'm responding to this late because I sourced this from my RSS reader (which I access maybe 1-2 times a week) rather that Twitter (which I access several times a day). You might remember I raised the issue of immediacy in blog commenting in a post a while ago: http://phdblog.net/please-comment-on-this-post-but-hurry/
Many early bloggers seem to talk of halcyon days where online communities were engaged, shared endeavours that were small enough to be easily identifiable and manageable. These days, the affordances of social media has enabled a mass use and with it a me-centred network logic that necessitates aggressive, marketing style strategies to get noticed, and methods of aggregation to keep up with it all. Yet I still think there remains a natural inclination towards wanting to engage in, and become identified as part of, one or more communities. Twitter is useful for promoting your blog and other online activities, but it's only as good as the people you follow, the resources they share, and the links they provide. We still need other forms of social media that enable a greeter depth of engagement, discussion and reflective thinking.
@ Anne Marie: A good point about the interactivity of the new tools. Even though they have become more "me-centered" they are more fluid than the Web 1.0. But have they changed enough to warrant a new "version" like Web 3.0. And what is Web 3.0? I see it more and more, but I wonder if ANYONE gets it.
@ Andy: I do remember your post and one of the issues you brought up was the depth of conversation. In terms of a learning tool, I am not sure I feel as engaged with a community with tools like twitter (although perhaps it is the way I have seen it used...Anne Marie seems to have discovered a way to engage with her community). As your most recent post points out, it is the way in which tools are being used rather than the tools themselves. I feel that the new web tools are being used to collect connections rather than to do as Anne Marie suggests and filter and engage with members of the network (which would need to have the feeling of community, in my opinion, to do more than just have superficial interaction).
BTW both Andy and Anne Marie, I use a page flake (igoogle) for my homepage so I see all of the most recent blog posts for the blogs I am interested in whenever I sign on to the internet.
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