Those were the days…

I get the feeling a lot of people who were actively involved in early online communities and blogging miss the relative simplicity that the smaller number of participants provided. As I commented recently on Virginia Yonker’s blog, the key is in how these were small enough to be easily identifiable and manageable. Being a relatively late adopter, I can appreciate how the affordances of current social media has enabled mass use, yet with this comes a radically different dynamic of social engagement, which is not necessarily more distributed but infinitely more populated and complex.

Many see the answer in developing Personal Learning Environments / Networks (PLE/N) and employing technology-enabled methods such as subscription and aggregation to keep up with it all. Yet does the adoption of a learner-centric network logic require us to develop aggressive, neo-liberal marketing strategies with an emphasis on self-promotion and immediacy to get noticed? Is this at the expense of the richer communication and identity formation associated with traditional modes of participation and interaction? There remains a natural human inclination to want to engage in, and become identified as a member of, communities, but how can this be cultivated in a more network-based culture?

Does this equate to a trade-off, where we embrace the advantages of an expansive engagement with wider networks and multifarious communities, or do we restrict ourselves to fewer, or even singular, localised groups?

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4 Responses to “Those were the days…”

  1. virginia Yonkers Says:

    Great questions. I decided to blog my answer.

  2. James Mcnaulty @online phd Says:

    Definitely !, social media is becoming awfully complicated not only with the number of networks available but with the varied level of participation as well. I am gradually being educated on the complexity of some of these networks. Once positive aspect is there is a lot of scope for research about complex interactions within these communities.

  3. Engaging with Social Media | PhDBlog.net Says:

    […] her lengthy response to a previous post of mine, Virginia Yonkers offers further insight into how we perceive social networks and […]

  4. Bruce Says:

    Definitely !, social media is becoming awfully complicated not only with the number of networks available but with the varied level of participation as well. I am gradually being educated on the complexity of some of these networks. Once positive aspect is there is a lot of scope for research about complex interactions within these communities.

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