Modern Society's Front Porch

     This was my final essay for Comp II last spring, it was kind of fun to write. Jason liked it a lot, scored a 99 on it, the rough draft (96 pionts) could have been accepted as the final paper, but I wanted those three extra points I earned. And there were one or two sentences that I wanted to reword just so they would sound better.

     It can be a blessing, or it could be the work of the devil. It can wreck a marriage or reunite families. It can be every bit as addicting a drug as alcohol, or it can be a form of therapy. It can help keep friendships alive, or it could get you fired. For every one and many more of these contradictory elements, social media can be either a good or bad thing. It is a tool, and as novelist Jack Schaeffer wrote, a tool, whatever it is, is only as good or bad as the man who uses it. For the most part, social media, as a whole, is a good tool for communication.

            As humans, we are made to connect with others, to interact. We build up nations over time, subdivided by such things as state, tribe, city, neighborhood or family. The basic unit, however, is this concept we call “communities”, which is a hard idea to precisely define. Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary defines it this way: “All persons living in a specific location; or a group having interests or religion in common; or joint sharing.” Stephanie M. Reich suggests that a “community” involves interdependence, communication and emotional connection, and is operated in a systematic way. It also involves dealing with people (Reich). Over time, as new technologies are developed and distributed among the masses, the sense of community shifts as well, further complicating matters of definition. While talking of Time magazine in his book The Mechanical Bride, scholar Marshall McLuhan suggests that the press had fostered the image of the world as one single city as a byproduct of their work, in the process creating a new area for communities to develop (McLuhan). With these new technologies, what once was relatively easy to define gradually spread out from a group in the same geographic area to groups with shared interests still with physical interactions, and then migrating into the digital world they became all shared interests with next to no face-to-face meetings (Reich).

            As the Internet grew, sites like MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, Google+ and Twitter emerged, as well as other sites such as the children-oriented Webkinz, the dating sites eHarmony and Match.com, Internet radio on Pandora and Spotify, professional networking at LinkedIn and image-driven sites such as Pinterest and Tumblr. These can all fall under the general term “social media”, which Thomas A. Bryer defines as “technologies that facilitate social interaction, make possible collaboration, and enable deliberation across stakeholders”. Through social media, content and information can travel extremely fast, city agencies can get feedback on proposed policies as well as draw participation for events such as meetings or ceremonies (Bryer). Elected officials can become better acquainted with their constituents’ opinions and needs. Newspapers, radio and TV stations can find out what their audiences would like to see, as well as get news tips unavailable in any other format. For events of national scale, such as the shootings in Aurora or Sandy Hook, the Joplin tornado, Hurricane Sandy or the Boston bombings, information was first spread through social media sites, and then up-to-date proceedings were delivered via Twitter as the stories unfolded.

            Another aspect of the beneficial uses of digital resources is education, which has and can be improved through the use of social media, as Patrick Larkin notes. Larkin states that one of the basic tenets of public education has been to prepare students for life outside the classroom, and create tomorrow’s responsible citizens. He further argues that to create proper citizenship in our modern world, schools must embrace digital resources, which include social media. A former principal, Larkin outlines the way his school district has benefitted from its’ new status as

social media-literate, with school news posted on a blog, Twitter account and Facebook page,  giving the local newspaper instant access to potential stories, as well as giving parents lightning-fast updates on school happenings. These tools can also create easier pathways to learning, such as online classes: “Teachers and students now collaborate with other eager learners from anywhere – at any time – accessing and learning with experts in subjects they are passionate about. Social media is also learning media” (Larkin).

            Through LinkedIn, and to a lesser extent, Facebook, etc., jobseekers can land careers in their fields, as well as develop useful contacts to make their jobs run more smoothly. Advice and insights can be shared on how to craft a better-looking resume, nailing that important interview, or new techniques that could improve productivity. Portfolios of previous work history can be developed as companies increasingly research potential employees online, and references can give feedback with just a few mouse clicks.

            Journalist Wayne Greene offered an interesting insight into this subject when he commented on air-conditioning leading to the demise of knowing your neighbors. His editorial argued that as families migrated indoors into the newly air-conditioned houses to watch the new device of television, they stopped interacting with their local communities. People no longer sat on the porch with neighbors while their kids played in the street; instead they all sat huddled in their respective living rooms watching “Bonanza” or “Happy Days”. Through this new frontier of social media, in particular Facebook, Greene theorizes that “we have a chance to recreate the communities we lost sixty years ago.” Used to, in our grandparents’ time, you would have conversations with your neighbor over the fence on all manner of subjects, from national politics to the high school football season to where to find a good sale on tomatoes. These are the types of things we discuss on Facebook, in a sense. Of course, they aren’t exactly parallel; at times you are just yelling your opinion out into the netherworld of nothingness, and it can occasionally take a long while before someone replies to your post. It doesn’t complete replace the front porch, but it serves as a close substitute for our era. “If we build communities online, all those things we lost when we started coming in every night might be regained” (Greene).

            Through Facebook, as we build our online communities, the handcuffs of proximity may be loosed; as we can get to know almost anyone we wish, no matter how far the distance might be between us. Personally, I use mine in order to keep track of news and to stay in touch with friends and family, scattered throughout fourteen different states and four countries. Many of my closest friends live in Missouri and surrounding states, and one of my sisters lives in Canada. Through Facebook, I’ve been able to stay in the loop of what’s happening in their lives, in addition to being plugged into the large-scale support network of encouragement and sympathy, laughter and advice of friendship as we try to help each other through this life we live.

        For all these reasons listed and many others, the upside to online networking and benefits from utilizing social media far outweighs their deficiencies. It’s an unshakable pillar of society that grew overnight, and though it will evolve as further new technologies emerge, our basic need for community is still intact. With so many helpful opportunities that communication through social media offers, we have the tools for changing our world for the better. Our communities exist now because of social media, and that’s a good thing.