all social media becomes blogging: digital storytelling
I love how all social media, if it encourages group conversations and lives long enough, becomes blogging: digital storytelling. Whatever social space feels like home, that's where people will tell their stories.
(if your "home" social space is in-person, please read the bottom 2 paragraphs first)
It's not surprising that facebook, with its effort to be all things social, became at least partly a blogging site. (it is surprising to me that it became MY blogging site though, lol)
Twitter was meant to be bite-size only, but it is full of blogs, created as tweet threads where an author responds to themself -- it is succinct but blogging nonetheless. Another method of blogging on twitter is posting images of text in order to get around the character limit (I don't think there is a character limit on their alt text, but I have not tested that).
Instagram was meant to be a purely image-sharing app, but its descriptions have become a place where some people blog. Tiktok was a lip syncing app but now is full of microblogs on every subject. YouTube is full of video blogs. Reddit is full of short-story-style blogs.
People love telling stories and reading or hearing them. Stories are how we learn and how we connect. Some of us write our own stories, others create a collage from other people's stories to represent their own story. Some use words, others use images, still others use both.
This is the same way people have connected since the beginning of language. We tell stories and we absorb each others stories. There is nothing that is really new about doing it digitally, except that now 1) people who don't match the norm can find people who are interested in their stories, and 2) people with disabilities can access more stories and share more stories.
So I have extreme disdain and no respect for people who advocate for "device free safe spaces." You don't need a "safe space" for this because no one is hurting you by simply using their own device. So many of the people who want others to not use devices want this because they assume that they have the right to the attention of anyone who is in their presence. You don't have a right to it (except possibly if you are their parent or guardian, but even then it depends on age and other factors), and you should have to ask for what you want, and be willing to accept "no." It's called consent.
Side note: don't assume that because someone is looking at their device that they are not paying attention. They might be writing a note about something you said because otherwise they'll forget, or using a real-time captioning app to help them understand what you said, or playing a mindless game to help them focus their conscious attention on you, or simply doing something that takes no conscious attention. If you are worried, ASK if they are paying attention. If you are distracted by it, explain that and ask if they can set it aside.
People like Dr. Sherry Turkle (an academic who ought to fucking know better) claim that social media is making us lonely and disconnected, that we need to stop connecting online in order to prevent us becoming hopelessly lost and separate, that digital connecting is killing "real" conversation. I think this is projecting. This claim is made by people who have refused to learn how to tell their story digitally, and don't want other people to use a digital space for storytelling because they fear that analog storytelling will die. This is ridiculous. Something so innate to humanity cannot die. People will turn to it in any situation that enables them.
And advocating for "device free" spaces disgusts me because to eject digital connection from face to face connection means leaving out anyone with a mobility disability, people who are Deaf or hard of hearing, people who can't afford transportation or can't find accessible transportation, people who have speech related disabilities, people who have compromised immune systems, etcetera. So "device free" is not a good thing.
There are people who need in-person connection because digital spaces are not accessible to them, because of dyslexia or anxiety or lacking access to devices or other reasons. This is valid, but it does NOT excuse treating "analog only" spaces as the default, or as more important than mixed spaces.
My ideal for community is to have spaces that are both. To have people consider it just as necessary for a face to face indoor meeting to have accessible digital attendance available as it is to have chairs and lights and air conditioning.
(if your "home" social space is in-person, please read the bottom 2 paragraphs first)
It's not surprising that facebook, with its effort to be all things social, became at least partly a blogging site. (it is surprising to me that it became MY blogging site though, lol)
Twitter was meant to be bite-size only, but it is full of blogs, created as tweet threads where an author responds to themself -- it is succinct but blogging nonetheless. Another method of blogging on twitter is posting images of text in order to get around the character limit (I don't think there is a character limit on their alt text, but I have not tested that).
Instagram was meant to be a purely image-sharing app, but its descriptions have become a place where some people blog. Tiktok was a lip syncing app but now is full of microblogs on every subject. YouTube is full of video blogs. Reddit is full of short-story-style blogs.
People love telling stories and reading or hearing them. Stories are how we learn and how we connect. Some of us write our own stories, others create a collage from other people's stories to represent their own story. Some use words, others use images, still others use both.
This is the same way people have connected since the beginning of language. We tell stories and we absorb each others stories. There is nothing that is really new about doing it digitally, except that now 1) people who don't match the norm can find people who are interested in their stories, and 2) people with disabilities can access more stories and share more stories.
So I have extreme disdain and no respect for people who advocate for "device free safe spaces." You don't need a "safe space" for this because no one is hurting you by simply using their own device. So many of the people who want others to not use devices want this because they assume that they have the right to the attention of anyone who is in their presence. You don't have a right to it (except possibly if you are their parent or guardian, but even then it depends on age and other factors), and you should have to ask for what you want, and be willing to accept "no." It's called consent.
Side note: don't assume that because someone is looking at their device that they are not paying attention. They might be writing a note about something you said because otherwise they'll forget, or using a real-time captioning app to help them understand what you said, or playing a mindless game to help them focus their conscious attention on you, or simply doing something that takes no conscious attention. If you are worried, ASK if they are paying attention. If you are distracted by it, explain that and ask if they can set it aside.
People like Dr. Sherry Turkle (an academic who ought to fucking know better) claim that social media is making us lonely and disconnected, that we need to stop connecting online in order to prevent us becoming hopelessly lost and separate, that digital connecting is killing "real" conversation. I think this is projecting. This claim is made by people who have refused to learn how to tell their story digitally, and don't want other people to use a digital space for storytelling because they fear that analog storytelling will die. This is ridiculous. Something so innate to humanity cannot die. People will turn to it in any situation that enables them.
And advocating for "device free" spaces disgusts me because to eject digital connection from face to face connection means leaving out anyone with a mobility disability, people who are Deaf or hard of hearing, people who can't afford transportation or can't find accessible transportation, people who have speech related disabilities, people who have compromised immune systems, etcetera. So "device free" is not a good thing.
There are people who need in-person connection because digital spaces are not accessible to them, because of dyslexia or anxiety or lacking access to devices or other reasons. This is valid, but it does NOT excuse treating "analog only" spaces as the default, or as more important than mixed spaces.
My ideal for community is to have spaces that are both. To have people consider it just as necessary for a face to face indoor meeting to have accessible digital attendance available as it is to have chairs and lights and air conditioning.