The Machine is (Changing) Us – Michael Wesch

Hi, Alec,

I was trying to catch up on my blog feeds and had bookmarked this some time ago but never watched it until this evening. First of all, thank you for sharing it–it was really intriguing to watch and reflect on.

One of the ironies I have found as I have immersed myself in today’s social media is expressed in the video. On the one hand, I feel more connected to a global community of friends, acquaintances, educators, policy-makers, and complete strangers than ever before. We share ideas, discuss issues, amuse one another, and force each other to think in new ways. The flip side, however, is that these interactions are all too often, I find, very brief and superficial. A reader leaves a comment on a blog. The author may respond or, more often, does not respond. The reader moves on, and the conversation dies away. A Twitter message is posted, seeking a response but getting little or none, particularly if the author has not achieved a certain level of status within the group. A YouTube video with an important meaning is posted, but it is lost in the immense competition. There is a community, but it is loosely connected and often so large that any real connections are lost.

While I share the dream of deeper conversations and greater power and connectedness expressed in the closing moments of Dr. Wesch’s video, I can’t help but feel we are in many ways moving farther from this ideal. The latest, greatest new platforms continually emerge, spreading our time and attention ever more thinly, and diluting the conversations. It requires a focused effort to filter the input and try and focus attention on what is truly important and effort on things of real significance. I believe I share the feelings of many when I say we are all too often wasting such an incredible opportunity to effect real change and real empowerment.

I’d be happy too, D’Arcy–let me know when and how I can contribute.

I think Randy Rodgers’ points are correct. We are experiencing the inevitable (and familiar) tension between breadth (width) and depth. I am far less engaged in the discourse than most of you and I feel fragmented following the networks I engage with. Sadly, there is no resolution to this tension. At best we can strike some sort of personal balance.

I’ll offer a contrast though. For much of my career I have felt isolated in tiny rural communities with a small numbers of colleagues. The annual subject council and a few journals were my limited contact with the larger community of educators who shared my interests and concerns. We were a largely homogeneous group I think collected together to share ideas and pick things up from the experts. Social networking allowed me to seek a wider and more varied community. The professional and personal value of that cannot be underestimated. I know I am missing much of the discourse and certainly I have not been left with many satisfying conversations — exchanges where I feel I have been heard and other’s ideas have been adequately probed and reflected back to the person who initiated them. Yet what a richening experience it has been.