After writing my last post I went upstairs to make cinnamon rolls for my son’s birthday. As I mixed melted butter, yeast, sugar, and flour together I realized that I had misrepresented my relationship with social software. I actually use more than Facebook—I bookmark useful sites on delicious, use RSS feeds for keeping up with a few blogs, news feeds, and notices of LIS webinars, visit the library community WebJunction occasionally, and use Google Docs for class projects. Maybe I didn’t report them in my last post because I take them for granted now. Or maybe I’m not only underreporting but also undervaluing my use of social sites—I’m an observer/reader/lurker who makes occasional contributions, rather than an active participant, and I thought that didn’t count for much.
I have two thoughts on my role as a lurker.
1) I’ve been reading Clay Shirky’s Here comes everybody: The power of organizing without organizations (fascinating book!). Shirky says that the occasional contributors, those who form the long part of the tail, are an essential part of the social community. In fact, he says, “…the imbalance [in user contributions] drives large social systems rather than damaging them…large social systems cannot be understood as a simple aggregation of the behavior of some nonexistent ‘average’ user” (Shirky, 2009, p. 125). So my minimal participation is part of the social network.
2) In one of the papers in this week’s reading list, Steve Hargadon says “the answer to content overload…is to produce more content. Because it is in the act of our becoming a creator that our relationship with content changes, and we become more engaged and more capable at the same time” (Hargadon, 2008, Trend #2). This argues for my becoming more active for my own sake (and this may benefit the community as a whole as well—at least I hope so!). Hargadon’s comment fits well with my response to overload in conversation, in busy stores or museum, or in the online environment—I want to go out for a walk, to garden, or to try out a new recipe. Physical activity and/or a creative act serve as antidote for the overwhelmed observer. I’ll add writing a blog post to that list and see how it works.
Hargadon, S. (2008). "Web 2.0 is the Future of Education." Steve Hargadon.
Shirky, C. (2009). Here comes everybody: The power of organizing without organizations. New York, NY: Penguin.
Like you, I was surprised at the amount of attention I give to the virtual world and surprised by it.I'm also curious about the idea of creating in order to to deal with the overload of the community. As a painter, I've found that I need large bits of space where I'm just quiet in order to slow down the metabolism from the world and I don't know if that is from a natural tendency towards inroversion or a reaction to the overloaded world. My quiet time is connected to quiet activities often with some creativity involved such as the things you mentioned, but I think creating takes such energy as well - it's as if we need to fuel ourselves to create as well as to interact with this world.
ReplyDeleteExcellent point--I think we need to disengage from input of all kinds to be able to create something new. Maybe the amount and timing of disengagement varies a lot from one person to the next...
ReplyDeleteI remember being frustrated with how busy I was as a junior in high school (even though I enjoyed the activities). I said something to my dad about having only 15 spare minutes at a time, "not long enough to write poetry", I explained. He suggested I learn how to write in 15-minute snatches, because I might not be getting more than that as an adult. That was depressing. I see his point now, but still need longer than 15 minutes to decompress and expand into the self-awareness needed for creative activities. Sigh.