First, take a minute to look at this infographic:
I think this is similar to what many people in the edtechosphere have seen. There have been a lot of comments in the past year about the “death of blogging.” While I think this is taking it too far, the fact is true that we have seen a fall in the number of people who see blogging as their first or most important space for connecting with others. We have seen that move to twitter (mostly).
Don’t get me wrong, I love twitter. It is a source of always on connection that lets me feel I can connect with others around the world easily and quickly. I feel like part of a community. But that is also it’s problem. As with almost anything else, from food to learning, anything that happens “easily and quickly” needs to be circumspect. “Easy and quick,” if we are talking about food would bring me to McDonalds. “Easy and quick” if we are talking about relationships; well that isn’t good either. Twitter as a platform lets us connect with others and link to new ideas; but it really does not work effectively as a space that moves our thinking forward. 140 characters is just simply not enough to explore and idea and flesh something out.
The same thoughts need to come around to our students and their use of technology. When students move into microblogging platforms and formats, does that move their learning possibilities into sound bites as well? It gives them a way to connect, but not to dig deeply, think and explore. If this is the pattern of emerging technology usage, what are the effects and consequences of this?
This is an interesting graphic, but I’m missing some pieces and I’m leery of what Tufte calls “chart junk” in the creation of graphical data representation that skews perception.
For example, the graphic skews the size of the populations as a whole. It shows only those who are identified as “chatting” and those who are identified as “creating.” How many are neither? How many do both? How were these data collected? What about the number of people who are doing something else? Like shopping or gambling?
The growth of tools and the numbers of people who are connected by those tools has grown dramatically since 2007. The infographic reports the number of people who engage in those activities but how much time do they spend? It’s not clear to me that the middle piece represents anything significant in terms of “chatting” vs “creating” except in the raw numbers of people who now chat who didn’t used to. Are they spending more time chatting than they used to spend talking on their cell phones, for example? I’m not seeing any acknowledgment of the amount of time people spend chatting vs the amount of time they spend creating – only in the raw numbers of people.
I also don’t see any acknowledgment that these conversations may well be sparking new creation – new collaborations – across the participants who use these platforms for creation. There is much more going on here than a red and gray graphic that purports to represent a shift.
For my own part, I “chat” much more now than I did before 2007. Twitter, Ning, and Skype are my tools of choice. Before 2007, I blogged and commented much more but my *creativity* moved to a new platform. Yes, I’m using these platforms to “chat” but also to create. In addition to those platforms, I’m still blogging — altho with an admittedly narrower focus and audience in mind — but the changed in the internet and the growth of social media has given me the tools I need to move into a directly and traditional creative effort. Since January, 2007, I’ve written seven novels, recorded them in audio, and distributed them as podcasts. Because of the growth of “chatting” I’ve located a publisher who will now be printing my books and making them available to a wider audience outside the echo chamber of the internet.
While I appreciate that my experience is anecdotal, and perhaps not overly generalizable, I think the reality is that there are millions of people who are using the affordances of “chat” to produce, promote, and distribute a variety of creative efforts in addition to “chatting.”
Let’s also keep in mind the “seed” factor. Chat is the gateway. People get comfortable with the technology through the use of chat, by connecting using tools that they might otherwise ignore or discount. They come in, find inspiration and impetus. When they’re comfortable working with the simple digital tools, the door opens to more complex, more creative, and deeper possibilities.
Do you find that students do not use Twitter. Around our school, texting is the primary communication tool. Email is even used less as well. Our edtech. consultant saysthat Twitter seems to be a tool used by more “middle aged” people and when he asks, students, they seem indifferent about Twitter. Just curious if you have heard this as well.
Nathan: Thanks for stopping by and continuing the conversation with the detailed comment. Yes, I agree with you about the “chart junk” (a term I’ve never heard by the way). I also have wondered about the movement from chatting moving people’s thought in to into creation, but in my own experience, this has generally headed the other way. Many people I know who used to maintain vibrant and bust blog spaces, flickr or youtube accounts, are now spending less time in the deeper, more reflective places and are “chatting” more. This has been true of my own experience as well. I am now trying to dig deeper and spend more time thinking and blogging, but it is a conscious effort on my own part.
Dave: Funny that you should mention this actually. Twitter came up in my grade 7/8 classroom the other day. Most of the kids hadn’t even heard of it. One of the students who had said that “twitter is that site where 30 year olds can post updates and pretend they are on facebook.” I thought that was very telling….