The Conversation
There’s a lot of chatter about how blogging is a waste of time, or worse – an addiction. Some have called ‘virtual community’ an oxymoron.
Sure, mindlessly surfing YouTube for entertainment is little different than vegging in front of a television. But when we share ideas and opinions with each other, are we not creating authentic community? Is not the depth of community limited only by the thoughtfulness of our ideas and intents?
Maybe the critics have it backwards. Perhaps X-er’s and Millennials are learning how to make deep connections into the world community in ways that boomers simply can’t fathom?
In a reply to a question about addictions to virtual communication (Blackberry’s, etc), Keith Hampton, an MIT sociology professor, said recently that “You can’t be addicted to [virtual] communication. We’re all social animals. We want to communicate with those around us.” Virtual interconnectivity has simply moved the proximity of “those around us” from local to global – with a resultant increase in not just quantity, but quality.
Ideal blogging, especially ecclesial blogging, seeks to engage others in generous, challenging, informative, supportive community. The microclesia is an emerging network of voices that augments, enhances, and informs local ecclesial community. The global-virtual conversation does not replace local-physical relationships. Nor does it pretend to. And while the power of virtual community to affect positive global-social change is virtually unlimited, I think we’re just beginning to glimpse its far-reaching potential.
We’re the first generation of participants in a grand new relational paradigm. Our progeny will study this era as the tipping point into a true global intelligence. This enhanced on-line experience should come as no surprise. Ten years ago, the largest text news providers were newspapers. Today?
“We’re actually producing more news in a single day for our 19 million users than every other media outlet has in their entire existence.” Mark Zuckerberg, FACEBOOK
Mark was quoted four months ago. Today, Facebook has 25 millions users.
Accelerating emergence. This isn’t the same world it was 10 years ago. And when we dare to look ahead 10 or 20 years, the rate of social-technical change will only continue to increase. The most relational institutions on the planet (e.g., colleges, churches, businesses) will be presented with the toughest challenges and greatest opportunities.
We’re realizing that the intersection of faith and technology is about rapid self-organizing convergence that cannot be contained within inherited ecclesiastical architectures. Just as the printing press caused an epochal shift in religious priorities and organization, so is the church again being profoundly (re)created by instantaneous virtual connectivity. And such emergence is not limited to the church – it’s happening in every facet of connected life.
May 4th, 2007 at 9:12 am
This post touches on series of conversations I’ve been having with a librarian coworker. Our smallish state university library has been trying to make changes relevant to what students need or want out of what was the first stop for information. The reference desk keeps track of questions live-bodied students ask. This list has been dwindling over the past year or two. It seems the students are either more or less competent in finding information on their own. The trick is to find out which one.
My co-worker joined facebook and myspace. Our university already has a network of over 2,000 on facebook. She wants to foster learning conversations with the students but is at a loss on how to meet up with them. She fears she will not have a job 5-10 years from now. Will librarians become obsolete?
May 4th, 2007 at 10:06 am
Hi Anna: We crave information – it makes us more human. Information = relationship. Like everything else in this emerging virtual world, perhaps the library will become more of a comprehensively living, virtual-relational entity.
If Project Gutenberg is any indication (see “Resources” sidebar), our grandchildren may rarely use a printed dictionary or read paper-based news.
Developments in new display technologies are hinting at cheap organic polymers almost as thin as book pages. Our grandchildren may in fact create a semiotic-rich, virtual-global network that librarians of today can hardly fathom.
Virtual search tools are getting far more intuitive. It’s almost like Google reads my mind! The emergence of strong AI will obsolete many of today’s skills and roles, and create new opportunities.
May 4th, 2007 at 12:18 pm
I suppose I should rephrase the idea of information access in terms of authority. Wiki is the bane of the librarians’ and professors’ existence. Students think it has authority because of peer-review and multi-authorship. Of course this idea is very exciting but it is not scholarly. The rules of the game are still the same in academia. Its just the accumulating of raw materials which may change. The raw materials, of course, should be from someone who knows.
What my co-worker fears is losing the authority of a gate-keeper. She guides students to the best sources of information: the most factual, the most-up-to-date, the oldest, primary, secondary. She helps them write about the information: citations, quotations, bibliographies. Does she wish to be the only authority? By no means, but she still wants to be a part of the students’ learning here.
May 4th, 2007 at 1:36 pm
Good points, Anna. In areas of scientific / objective / pure data, gate keepers are essential.
Keep in mind that the Wiki concept is just getting started. We’re all building this together, and learning as we go. Watch for an announcement on my blog tomorrow that will take virtual-ecclesial cooperation into an entirely new realm.
In the ecclesial world, it’s my sense that we’re -all- gate keepers; not religious experts or professionals, but co-workers and co-servants.
Perhaps our life in The Way isn’t an exercise of knowledge or authority, but rather a living acknowledgment of a greater authority and a higher knowledge.
May 5th, 2007 at 1:47 pm
[...] Millennials, blogging, and online community: John LaGrou on The Conversation. “We’re realizing that the intersection of faith and technology is about rapid [...]
May 10th, 2007 at 2:09 am
Hi there,
I really like surfing the internet and observing and responding to blog entries.
However, as a person that is learning about communication between human beings, I also, see a great downfall to the bloggosphere.
Most people realize that communication is mostly through body langfuage and the tense, mood and inflection of voice, this can only be observed and experienced by mature readers and very reflective individuals.
Therefore, this leaves a very open field for misinterpretation and miscommunicatoin. Just like the scriptures, our blogging can cause more harm than good.
We NEED living bibles in front of us, living scriptuires, hearts that have “text” written on them and authenticated by their actions.
In the Blog-o-sphere I can’t see your actions, nor can I interpret your mood, tense and voice, therefore I can easily be mislead, and find mytself hurt confused and even more distant than I was before I started the conversation.
These are just some thoughts on technology and blogging. I appreciate the ideas you have, especially the Wiki concept.
I know Len personally, after a few years of reading and following his online conversations, I was able to develop a persoanl real-time friendship with him, he authenticates his words by his actions….
May 10th, 2007 at 10:06 am
Hi Casey – I think you’ve identified one of everyone’s key concerns about virtual community. Is it “real” community w/o local-physical interaction? Personally, I think the “church” will (must) adapt and embrace all emerging forms of communication – just as printed books became an ecclesial backbone.
I don’t thnk anyone envisions the global-virtual network replacing local-physical community. Rather, in the same way that distributed books expanded human awakening, perhaps global-virtual networking will bring a profoundly new sense of mission and focus to the global church? Christ’s heart is global, after all.
The Internet / web is like a newly created classroom. If we, as a church, approach this expanding virtual community as students – each learning from one another – our on-line relationships can only bring increased understanding and relational empathy – which cannot but reflect directly back into our local communities.
On-line community seems both a logical and empathic extension of what we call “church.”
March 5th, 2009 at 7:38 pm
Hi. I read a few of your other posts and wanted to know if you would be interested in exchanging blogroll links?