Boiled down, it goes like this: Humans get their information from two places — from mainstream media or some other centralized organization such as a church, and from their network of family, friends, neighbors and colleagues. We’ve already digitized the first. Almost every news organization has a website now. What Zuckerberg [the founder] is trying to do with Facebook is digitize the second.Question for me is--what, ultimately, are the consequences of digitizing social relations? If these social relations are secondarily, or even primarily, digitized, how does that affect the shape, content, and dispersion of the information? What is lost or gained in this process of digitalization? Finally, how do institutes of Higher Ed. respond to the shifting terrain of information dispersion, both inside and outside the classroom? Apparently, a new word has already been coined to describe this process--"sociodigitization."
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Facebook and Sociodigitization
Here's an interesting quotation from an LA Times article about Facebook:
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11 comments:
Tiffany--How Web 2.0, etc., changes social relationships is too big for me, but I am interested in how sharing software can be used effectively in higher ed--especially classrooms and the kinds of Studios we have set up at LSU. Will blogs and wikis, etc., produce more creativity, more collaboration, or will they be used for something else. I plan to invite my Writing & Culture Seminar this spring to reflect on this question. I will share their comments (or encourage them to do themselves). I'm convinced that we want to use these technologies as pedagogical enhancements, but I'm not sure of all the ways yet. I'm also not sure what they can't do, vis-a-vis social relationships in a learning environment, that face-to-face communication, and only f-2-f, must do.
it feels like this is similar to the questions we've all been asking ourselves when discussing the best methods of communication among us. i.e. a blog, blackboard, more frequent meetings, email, etc. i think the way digitizing helps in all information-sharing situations (academic, professional, social) is having a place to go back to in order to review information. Certain conversations can only be productive in real-time with real voices, but the ideas brainstormed or the next steps decided on, etc. can well be documented in virtual space. Myspace, facebook, evites, etc. have proven to be food tools for organzing social events and community actions and for sharing news about major life events (pregancies, weddings, births, job promotions, graduations, etc). We've become used to electronic notices and invitations and to "dropping" by other people pages to find out what's new in their worlds. I'm too wondering how this mode of communicating and disseminating information changes our understanding of communication in a professional environment.
You make a great point, Colleen. Our digital social/professional environments may very well document and preserve our thought processes. As we've moved our offices this week and I've sorted through hundreds of file folders, I've realized that my written notes and marginalia are much like what I can retrieve in these environments: a history of our thoughts about a problem or a project. --L
One challenge that must be met (and will be difficult to overcome) is the natural resistance amongst our students to the digitization of their academic experience.
Based on my experiences in the classroom and the studio I've learned a few things about our students: They crave face-to-face interaction. They are suspicious of not being able to see body language, facial tics, and hear vocal fluctuations. They are resentful of the title "digital natives" despite their knowledge that they are digital natives. They don't want everything to be digital, they fear the loss of personal interaction.
They are suspicious of academics getting into their digital worlds in the same way they are suspicious when their parents start using words like "bling" and "phat." It seems to contrived and invasive to them.
These are just a few of the obstacles that we will face in the classroom.
yes, jen, we must be mindful of that. i think the point is that we are not (or at least i don't think we are) trying to replace genuine face-to-face interaction. instead, i think we're wondering how to use digital environments in way that supports such interactions. and i honestly think easy access and storage is a key benefit to digitizing pieces of our courses. for example, simply providing students with a digitally marked up essay as opposed to hand written comments, makes it easier and more likely for that student to store their evaluated work. in turn, making it more accessible in the future. i think this can work with more complex, technological assignments as well. additionally, things like blogs and wikis can be more productive than quizzes and physical journals, because again we increase access and can continue conversations that begin inside the walls of the classroom or during conferences.
i think part of the way we can minimize student skepticism is to stop acting like technology is so mysterious and amazing, and start recognizing it as the tool that is. for example, we do not spend hours of class time justifying why our students need to know how to use a pen and a notebook, nor do we spend enormous amount of effort justifying our non-tech assignments (research papers, presentations, journals, etc) and indulging our students' protests, even though many of them believe that learning to write or speak well will be of no use to them. if we find an assignment that uses technology and makes sense to the goals of our courses, we simply clearly explain the project and assign it to our students.
man, i miss being in the classroom.
Hi,
Here's another interesting piece that argues that people who have grown up with digital social networking services have an entirely different view of privacy issues than those who did not: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/webguide/internetlife/2007-10-22-online-privacy_N.htm?csp=34.
If what this report says is true, if our students are part of a generation that has no qualms about sharing so much of their lives with the online world, I wonder why they are less enthusiastic about digitizing their academic experiences (as Jen points out).
Oh, and does anybody else find this quote from the Facebook founder a bit disturbing:
"We're not trying to help you make new friends online. We're just trying to help you digitally map out the relationships you already have." I'm not sure I want my relationships "digitally mapped out."
um, yeah, that's a weirdly phrased mission statement. i think they're trying to promote the fact that unlike myspace, facebook has a lot more restrictions on simply "browsing" through and trying to send friend requests to strangers. the mapping out sounds very big brother-ish.
anyway, back to the topic at hand. yes, i've wondered that myself. i think it might be a question of fact vs. fiction. there is some room to play and pretend when building a page on a social networking site and to reject certain friends and delete certain comments and to, overall, detach yourself from serious scrutiny. with your academic work, those things become impossible. it is something we need to be very careful with. we need students to understand the value-add and the use of such public displays of their work and remove the threat of them being academically "tarred and feathered" in the middle of the virtual town square.
Colleen and Lee both make good points.
I think student unease lies in their distrust of those older than them infringing on their "turf" so to speak. Myspace and Facebook have become tools of "the man" with law enforcement, professors, parents, and even employers using them for various means (cracking cases, busting plagiarism, spying, etc). They are willing to share amongst themselves, but not necessarily with authority figures.
One other thing to consider: the archiving factor of the digital world isn't as permanent or protected as we might think. A moderator on message board I belong to recently deleted an entire topic thread by accident when attempting to remove an offensive post. That information is, sadly, lost forever, despite the best attempts to retrieve and backup.
I'm not trying to be a nay-sayer, I'm only pointing out that going into this with only a partial idea or a vague notion could be extremely detrimental to the academic experience.
Interesting discussions, everyone.
I think some students, like many others, like the traditional classroom format. Many don't want to change it, and I'm not sure how much change I personally want. Some of the most privileged universities in the world still promote face-to-face tutorials and seminars because pedagogy there, and the opportunity for collaboration, are so powerful on a personal, intimate scale (see Plato's Phaedrus). However, I do want to use any new tools for communication that prove to be worth it for me and my students. Since many are already using the Web 2.0 technologies, it makes sense to explore their applications. I've found Blackboard discussions useful, and it's only a short hop from BB to a blog.
The issues of privacy are huge. No one wants their drafts of a formal paper or speech to be open to criticism from the world (or at least no one I know--this may be part of the "new" ethos of sharing/exposing everything that the NYT article is referring to, I don't know). I plan to explore "channels" and other ways of determining who sees and who doesn't, and why.
Oddly enough, I have had some really interesting "welcome" messages from current and former students on Facebook. One said he was happy that I was joining in his "favorite form of communication." Maybe I'm so old now that they don't think it's an invasion of their privacy for me to be in that space. It might be different if I were their parents' ages. One student did say that it was a little jarring to have someone who gives grades exchanging wall posts, but once he finished my class, we've had several really interesting conversations, most private exchanges about grad school, etc. Facebook, per se, is not an instructional tool for me or my students (at least not as I currently use it or as it is configured).
Finally, on mapping of digital identities. What I post on FB or this blog or websites is just a partial representation of me and my relationships to the world. I don't post anything on them that I don't want the world to see. I'm sure my boundaries for this are quite different from those of my students.
"Representation of self" is a hugely interesting rhetorical topic for me (see "Rhetorical Women"), and just today, a review of Frieda Kahlo's new exhibit at the Walker Art Museum in Minneapolis. Fascinating glimpses of her--most managed by her, a few not. What compels someone to paint her pain and her body in such vivid detail for the world to see, analyze, and speculate about? Painting/photography vs. sociodigitization--are they that much different? Just think about all the words people have written about Kahlo's identity and personal relationships. Fascinating.
Jumping into this conversation (a little late, but still meaningful), I have to admit that I have a love-hate relationship with online communities. And in my life pre-CxC (aka, my teaching days), my students and I had some interesting discussions about why they use these sites so much, etc. The common notion was that they were just, plain easier. In addition, I do recognize the benefits of these sites -- easy-access forums for dialogue, 'safe spaces' for expression, etc. However, I do fear that online networks alter our perspectives of both community and representation of the self. For example, people become overly involved with their 'pages' and even when they do go out (physically) with friends, they no longer take pictures for their memory/enjoyment -- but rather, to spruce up their pages, to constantly (re)create their digital image(s). And in essence, I worry that online representations (when over/mis-used) not only removes a level of human connection but also a sense of being completely present in the moment. Thus, I remain resistant to these sites because they can create false connections to the world while fostering a 'go-go-go' mentality... and because I haven't realized how these spaces promote *new* ways of critical and creative learning. Maybe I am being a traditional fuddy-dud, or maybe I am having a classic case of 'less-is-more.' Regardless, I think exploring both possibilities and limitations of "sociodigitzation" is a must.
Rachel and Lee,
Your concerns are exactly what I'm seeing reflected in my classroom discussions as well.
Dovetailing with your comments: Recently my classes and I have been discussing Bootleg culture and one thing that came up is that students like feeling that their online world is distinctly separate from their real life world. While they do enjoy the ease that digitization allows for things like creating mashups or reediting movies (and on and on) they also like that these things, like their myspace pages, can be walked away from and don't appear in real life (unless they want them to). There is a concern that in the classroom, their separate worlds would be combined, the boundaries blurred, and that they would have no escape from the digital world. In other words, they use reality as an escape from their digital interests.
I thought that was interesting.
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