I want to first take a moment to thank Dr. Howard for making his readings enjoyable. I have read quite a few research articles this week and I certainly appreciate the ease and aptness of these readings.
Chapter 6 of Design to Thrive discusses the notion of belonging. The synopsis asks “when does someone know when they have really “made it” into a community and, perhaps more importantly, how do leaders of the community help the achieve that sense of accomplishment?” My answer is you don’t – so you keep trying in hopes that you eventually do.
The examples provided in the chapter make this an easy chapter to understand as well as note the many applications. I must say I belong to many communities, but my online or digital communities lack the sense of belonging that my “real life” affords. Why is that? I think it is me, and not the online communities. I have not committed my online energy to maintaining a sense of belonging in digital communities.
I am a member of various social networks of a sort – Facebook (as I have mentioned- I am a failure at Facebook – too little time to devote to the seemingly inane postings of people with too much time on their hands). After reading the chapter, I now understand what people send me café (or whatever they are called) and Farmville requests. I am assuming that is a sort of rank / leveling of Facebook members. I of course have not taken the time to investigate this aspect of Facebook but at least now I get why people do it.
I have also signed up for various social networks along the way in an effort to become more connected in the teaching with digital technologies community. Amazingly (or not so amazingly), I forgot my password and did not bookmark the site, so I am not any more connected than I was before I requested membership. Again I was enlightened by the chapter with the notion of an initiation into the group. This particular site (the one I cannot remember) required a request for membership and an explanation of what you hoped to attain by being a member. It had rules (protocols) and I had to subscribe to those rules as well as provide that I was a graduate student interested in researching how teachers incorporate technology into their learning process (or to use Langer’s term – meaning making of texts). . I got many supportive responses from members pointing me in directions for research – which I followed and promptly lost my connection to the site to no longer be able to follow up with the true veterans in the field. I am hoping I can allot some time over the Christmas holiday to find this group again.
I think the most important aspect of belonging may be the protocols. Being able to build a schema with relative ease for that site and being able to participate in that community without feeling inferior or out of sorts as quickly as possible. For me Facebook (the 4 times a year I log on now that I am back in school) is about connecting with friend from a camp I attended and worked for from 1978-1991 and to connect with college friends. Thinking about this now, I wonder what protocols have I broken as a defunct member of Facebook? Can a friend request be out there too long without being answered? What happens when someone posts a comment on a photo – do you have to comment back? Then is it a battle of who has the last word?
I want to belong. If I were to unsubscribe to Facebook I would cutting myself off from some potential something that may happen. And I cannot run that risk even at the risk of committing a multitude of faux pas by not logging on weekly. So I get my email updates from people emailing me on Facebook and my email of posts from friends: Lisa posted today she is “1 year cancer free! YeeHaw” I of course did not know she had cancer (which is something I do not think you would post on your wall)– but you can imagine my relief that she has been cancer free for one year!
Thinking of Lisa made me thing of the Caring Bridge network and if there was ever a social networking site that is a blessing – caringbridge.org is it. I have had students, friends, colleagues and family use caringbridge.org to keep information up to date and accurate. This may be the most helpful social networking site I know of. In our community there is a little girl with a rare disease in which she spends a lot of time in the hospital and each day is a blessing. Her parents keep people informed about her progress on caringbridge.org rather than having to call people or answer the phone a million times a day. Her mother usually posts a note on Facebook saying Caroline is back in the hospital you can go to caringbridge.org to follow her progress. For that reason alone, this particular social networking site is a blessing. And the great thing about this website, is that it adheres to all of the principles outlined in this chapter.
Amazing – once you know what you are experiencing – it makes all the sense in the world. And to know there are mastermind designers behind the scenes creating things like Farmville to keep you logging onto Facebook and keeping the community active is all the more intriguing. Very interesting.
Reed,
ReplyDeleteI like that you've talked about Farmville and whatever else Farmville has become on facebook. Your post made me realize why I'm a much more avid facebooker, if you will, than I was when I first signed up about 5 or so years ago. When it first went public (and by public I mean facebook opened up to more than just ivy-league schools) my friend told me about it, signed me up, and created my first profile for me because he knew I wouldn't do it myself. After that I went crazy with all the "fun" things you could do. You know, facebook stalk all 8 of your friends, join groups, and look at your profile. Facebook was so limited back then I got away from it for a while because I wasn't getting remunerated for my being there and I didn't really have a sense of belonging because it seemed like it was just me hanging out being stalkerish. Then I started getting emails left and right from facebook, "So-and-so wants to be your friend." and "So-and-so just posted a picture of you." I started checking it only when those emails came. Then they started coming ten or more times a day. Eventually I caved and jumped on the bandwagon of facebook games and I have a browser window open at all times so I can check my facebook the second I get an email saying "So-and-so did such-and-such" or "So-and-so wants you to play this game." Its these little "time-wasters" that make me keep coming back to facebook - so I can challenge all my "friends" to Sudoku or Scrabble or what have you. These games have all the qualities that Dr. Howard talks about in the belonging chapter and I think that's why I am so addicted to facebook now - because there is always something to do.
Reed,
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with you about caringbridge.org and see why this is such an important online community. However, I have a story in which this sort of community was not helpful at all; in fact, it did more bad than good.
I had a friend who was in a terrible accident late one night. Word was that he was in intensive care, and his family wasn't even sure he'd make it through the next day.
The guy's girlfriend got on Facebook and made a group called "Praying for Adam Cox and Family." At first I didn't join it because I thought that just seemed a little weird to make a Facebook group for something as HUGE as if someone may live or die. But then, after seeing the ridiculous amount of people who joined it (turned out to eventually be over 1,000), I felt like I had to join it b/c it would look like I didn't care if I didn't join it.
The awful part about all of it was people started posting updates about Adam that weren't true. They'd just heard through the "rumor mill" that he was taken off of life support, and suddenly everyone was posting R.I.P. Adam Cox. Crazy thing was, the rumor was wrong, and he was still living. Then people started fighting on the wall about it (no, I'm not making this up.) Someone would post, "People, Adam's not dead. Quit saying RIP." Then someone else would post, "But I heard they took him off life support" and so on. It was awful. I just prayed that his parents didn't see.
When it was all over and done, my husband said, "Don't you dare ever put a Facebook group up about me if I'm in intensive care," which, obviously, I wouldn't. The problem with these online communities (at least Facebook) is there is no quality control. I know we've read time and time again that the control comes from those who follow (like with Wikipedia), which I guess is the case in Adam's group as well because people were correcting the mistakes, but still... I think in his case, by the time the mistake was made, it was extremely hurtful.
Wow. I just posted a really long comment, and then when I went to submit it, it said "request too large to process." Thanks Google.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, all I was trying to say is that things like caringbridge are good, but they can also be extremely hurtful. I had a friend who was in intensive care after a horrible accident, and his girlfriend posted a Facebook group entitled "Praying for Adam Cox and Family." The intent was to use this group to inform people about Adam's progress, but that wasn't the result.
It was absolutely awful. The girlfriend really didn't monitor it because she was in the hospital with Adam the whole time, so people started posting things they'd heard in the rumor mill that actually weren't true. For example, someone posted that Adam had died when he actually hadn't. Then someone else posted that he was taken off life support when he wasn't. (and I'm not making this up...) It was crazy. And I know we've learned that these online communities actually work because the followers correct each other on factual matters (i.e. Wikipedia), but in this case, I don't think that's good enough. To be sure, people corrected the wrong posts about Adam, but by that time it was so hurtful to the family that the group's main purpose had been defeated.