It's a Saturday morning, and I've been lying here on my sofa updating Twitter, Facebook, Plurk, Classroom 2.0, and doing a bunch of things that make me feel connected with my peers and wider communities. In the meantime, a guard's walkie-talkie has been blaring from near the gate to our compound, and I was wondering whether I should complain about it. But isn't the guard just doing exactly what I'm doing - keeping a line of communication open to his version of a social network? Just like Twitter, I'm sure that our compound guards mix a combination of work and play into the stream of communication that's circulating around our buildings.
There's something primal and essential about the need to send and receive messages, and it goes beyond mere functionality. The messages that we send and receive are collectibles; affirmers of worth and desirability, and sometimes we elevate them to esteemed positions in our mental trophy cabinet: "I got a message from X today!"/"Y friended me on Facebook!"/"Z is following me on Twitter!" (we take the social value of person X/Y/Z and add it to our own intangible social value). There are even those who believe that one's 'network worth' can be calculated as an algorithm. Our own messages and compositions may be revisited and rexamined for their 'essence' when they seem to have resonated with others (replies and comments to blog posts; direct responses on Twitter; cheery 'reply alls' to that witty quip you included in a work email).
The flow of our messages is like a flow of energy or currency. When communication slows down or ceases, a relationship is either likely to 'power down' or to join a parcel of obsolete connections that you've had in the past. It may be revived again, but it will likely require additional energy or extrinsic motivation in order to potentiate a reconnection. Messages are the lifeblood of relationships, and they're part of our deep-seated insecurity as human beings - and our need to be nurtured within a community. The communications industry may need to restructure itself at the moment in order to manage itself in the face of disruptive technologies, but it will never die.
Why do you send that text message that costs you money, when you could have waited to send a free message via email? Why do people feel the need to broadcast themselves live via Twitter, UStream, live blogging, or whatever format they're embracing? Why do we consume time on the phone, on email, Facebook, watching the television, browsing websites, talking, listening? Our communication isn't just about the functionality of life - it's about the art of life! The personality of our communication and the media that we choose to channel our thoughts is a deeper expression of an energy and a vitality. Messages are 'the ties that blind' - within the visible there are always layers of undeconstructed invisible psycholinguistics and personality - they are always open to interpretation, although they are rarely 'fully opened' when they're interpreted.
At school we passed messages on hastily folded slips of paper under our desks, and behind our teachers' backs. These days we're designing backchannels for classrooms so that we can actually siphon this desire into something positive. Messages can be exclusive, and messages can be inclusive. Messages can open doors, or they can close entire countries. Messages can be sent into space, marked as unread, deleted, imprisoned in spam folders, or on occasion they can become wildly popular memes that mutate and come back next month dressed in snazzier graphics and a brand new font.
A message can end as soon as it's written by being crumpled up and thrown in a trash can, or it can live on through millennia. A message can encapsulate a seriously bad idea, or it can be the catalyst for a revolution.
So if we know all of this then why aren't we building more social networking into our classrooms and into our communication with colleagues?
Saturday, November 15, 2008
What's in a Message?
Friday, November 14, 2008
Microbugging - Time to Filter!
Today I experienced an adverse reaction to overly-prolific social networking - the kind where it reaches a point of being unhealthy, and you just need to step back and take a break from someone's comments for a while. Sometimes social networking starts off as a perfectly healthy relationship between you and a member of your international peer group, but what if the person you're connected to turns down a path that you're too busy to follow?
I prefer to surround myself with positive, balanced individuals. I'm not interested in receiving a 'stream of consciousness' relay of someone else's every thought, doubt, or question. It's time for us to filter - both in terms of output, and in terms of input.
Today I 'cut off' some of my Twitter connections because their relays were interfering with my personal thought processes, and my ability to function as a positive, focused individual. Within several hours I received messages asking why I'd severed these links, and I attempted to state (where possible) that nothing is permanent, and that I needed to make room for other peoples' comments.
One of the problems with the modern ability to publish is that if you're going to choose to publish a poetic journey through your each and every thought, then you may want to look at which channel/forum/genre you choose to do this with. I'd like to introduce a new word into the discussion of microblogging: "microbugging" - a proclivity to share every thought with one's social network, as opposed to actively editing one's thoughts in order to relay and collect useful communication.
Related post: It's not complicated - it's just emotionally difficult.
Image CC Denis Collette.
