Defining Community
I sit at my computer most mornings to read the daily digest from several email discussion lists. People ask questions, offer opinions, share information.
I recently asked for recommendations of good house painters on the neighborhood email list, a group with 190 participants. Five replies came in, all sent only to my email address, not to the list.
Why would people choose to keep such responses private? The topic was far from sensitive, unless the forum is filled with people who paint houses for a living.
If the Internet is about community, and if it’s true that we all want to share, what accounts for people’s reluctance to post publicly on such discussion forums?
Do email discussion lists attract a more selectively social, less open, less trusting group of individuals than do some of the big-name social media sites? (Even the terms of the discussion assume that openness is good, that reserve is bad.)
A recent study from the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project “explored people’s overall social networks and how use of these technologies is related to trust, tolerance, social support, and community and political engagement.”
Take a look at the summary or the full report.
Thanks to San Francisco Chronicle business and technology reporter Benny Evangelista for his June 18 article about the study.
Sources
Benny Evangelista, Web Users Have Better Social Lives, Study Finds (published in hard copy as “Facebook Can Bring Friends, Trust, Support”), San Francisco Chronicle, June 18, 2011.
Keith Hampton, Lauren Sessions Goulet, Lee Rainie, Kristen Purcell, Social Networking Sites and Our Lives, Pew Research Centers Internet & American Life Project, June 16, 2011.
