Losing interest in social media: there is no there there
July 31, 2011
Commentary by Stephen Downes

As readers know, I've always had a distant relationship with social media. My focus has always been on this website, rather than my Twitter presence or my Facebook profile. It's a stance that has come with some criticism, and has sometimes cost me readership. But it's no matter. I've never been a mainstay in the cocktail party circuit (if you're looking for me at one, I'll be the large guy in the corner nursing a drink and planning my escape). Social media is, as George Siemens says, secondary media, and while it's useful to keep in touch, at least to a certain degree, the important things happen outside, at the edges, where real people are having real experiences. And like Siemens, I find almost intolerable "the shallow platitudes and self-serving 'look at me!' activities of social media gurus whose obsession is self-advancement." But you know, this is how it works. You can make change at the edges, or take credit for it at the centre. See also Graham Attwell, John Connell, Clarence Fisher, Paul Rudman.

[Direct Link] [Tags: Connectivism, Twitter, Books, Experience]
Comments

Re: Losing interest in social media: there is no there there

michael chalk, August 2, 2011

Funny Stephen, I've always thought of blogging as the core, or the original driver of social media; the other arms* are just ways to make it more accessible to the masses. Because the essence of social media is an online and potentially distributed space you can call your own, where other people can connect with you.

*When I say the other arms I mean the facebk and the tweet etc, and now the plus. The big blue buttons that people seem to find easier than rss ;-)

Ok now I'll go read what George says.

Cheers, michael [Comment] [Permalink] [Previous][Next]

Re: Losing interest in social media: there is no there there

weblearning, August 3, 2011

Remember when distance learning was a lonely enterprise that involved an envelope, a textbook and an assignment. Social media has transformed that isolating experience, and allowed ordinary part time students the experience of academic and social interaction.
Granted, social media may have allowed us to become too connected. There is certainly a lot of fluff, hype and self serving advancement out there. But there's also folk that engage, share and think out aloud, and if I was doing the part time studies thing again, I'd choose to learn via the connected route. [Comment] [Permalink] [Previous][Next]

Re: Losing interest in social media: there is no there there

leighblackall, August 18, 2011

I'm with Michael, I didn't realize that when George and Stephen say social media, they mean what I call social networking platforms. To my mind, the inte rnet pre andpost .com ideas, has always been one big social(ist) media channel. The likes of Gogle and oFacebook packing business model around it should have us making detailed critical statements on the quality of those platforms, less than vague remarks about evangelists.

Ps. I really struggled to input text in this comment box stephen. It doesn't scale to a phone screen, and the screen doesn't centre on the cursor...(?) [Comment] [Permalink] [Previous][Next]



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