Pew Internet and American Life

Link the their site

We're had enough conversation about this topic that a direct link to Pew's site seems in order.  Lots of information and pondering here about how the internet effects various aspects of American life today.

virtual voluntary

From the Atlantic re: Pew study
"The Pew Internet data essentially reinforces Clay Shirky's thesis in Here Comes Everybody (2008) on organizing in the digital age: As new innovations in media and information technology make communication infinitely more efficient, the costs of organizing plummet, creating more opportunities for collective action in the digital realm. Communities like Reddit and 4chan, for example, do have a "home base" on a particular website, yet have no need to deploy firm-like systems of complex rules to reduce the costs of engaging in communal activity; they simply act, with minimal direction." 

Along with our speculations we can consult some real studies of ways that the internet effects social capital.  I recommend this short piece which helps move the conversation from the anecdotal to the aggregate.

And the truth is...... it is just not simple, even if different than before and largely more positive than negative.

My questions remain however.  I'm wondering about the fundamental difference between being in the same space with other people, being able to see their expressions, smell their sweat, touch the texture of their clothing, share the same cake with them, and merely watching them on a video-link.  This is a basic matter of how we understand our selves as human beings, embodied spirits who take up space and who have several senses.

group work

When I was a student I did not like group work.  I preferred to take responsibility for my own efforts rather than rely upon others, even if they might have offered me resources I did not have myself.  Even if they might have....but of course I rather assumed that they would not and that the bother of negotiating the group dynamics would still have out weighted whatever paltry benefits might have come from that unlikely contribution.

Cyprian of Carthage

(In fairness I must mention one graduate school project for which my partner was far more prepared than I.  The topic was a Latin speaking North African theologian.  I was able to look up citations in the indexes and run to the stacks to retrieve the publications.  Beyond that, much of the work was Jane's.)

Now, as an instructor, I find myself using class time for small group discussion and assigning group written work.  Why?  Because experts in student learning have convinced me that we (we are all students) learn more in the midst of those social interactions.  The necessity of articulating our ideas and communicating with each other increases our understanding and our retention of both information and wisdom.  The interaction generates new insights and ideas.

And . . . .. (drum-roll) I'm relatively sure that the often frustrating and sometimes exhilarating practice of  working with one's peers is an important exercise in democracy.

Bowling in Iowa and at St. Olaf

In class I told students about my father's family and their bowling activities.  This photos in not of any of my relatives.  Nonetheless, it does portray in real people the larger cultural phenomena of bowling leagues in the mid-20th century and does so in the town my relatives lived in.

In that discussion we failed to mention that when the previous student commons was built at St. Olaf (Ditman now), there was a bowling alley in the lower level.  This photo is of those very lanes.  Ask alums from the late 1960s through the early 1990s if they bowled there.

Democracy FROM America?

While I have been snowed under by a three-prep semester and three weekends in a row out-of-town,  I have been thinking about democracy.  Who can avoid it as North African people and Wisconsin residents have been daily seeking it and engaging in it.  Certainly I can not since I have also been reading Democracy in America, and "Bowling Alone," and some Bellah, and some Jeff Stout with AmCon students.  So, even if I have not been keeping up with my blog, I have at least been thinking about and talking about democracy, freedom, and other precious concepts.

One topic to which our class conversation often returns: what role should Americans in the early 21st century take in "exporting" democracy?  Are we really good enough at this to be able to teach anyone anything?  Is it really our place to even suggest that democracy is the right system for others?

While we have been reading and thinking and talking about the idea of democracy, Beth Linn -- Ole and Peace Corps Volunteer -- has been daily engaged in the work of democracy and building social capital.  This posting from her blog offers a realistic and hopeful account of how one American is offering her fierce commitment to democratic citizenship in a far away place.