Will Richardson’s Changing the Mindset post used MySpace as an example of the emergent mindset that I mentioned in my previous entry. I thought Will’s example was excellent, and I left a comment,
“It seems that distinctions between public and private are being blurred, and the “real” world is hard to distinguish from online activity.”
After I submitted the comment I remembered something that I wanted to add.
My daughter, who is in her 20’s told me a few months ago that she had to get a MySpace account because her friends all had accounts. So much of their face-to-face conversation was about what people were doing on MySpace that she felt left out when they were together. She said that it was like turning down an invitation to a party. She didn’t know what they were talking about, and she had nothing to add to the conversation. She resisted getting involved for a long time, but finally concluded that it was necessary if she wanted to maintain her “real world” friendships. This isn’t the same thing as peer pressure. MySpace participation is normal for people her age.
This is not unlike what happened to me and my wife when we moved out of town to an area that didn’t have telephone service. We lost touch with our friends because it was too much effort for them to contact us. Fortunately, phone service came along after a couple of years, and we now see and hear from people. There was a lesson in this experience. People expect one another to use certain technologies, and when something becomes the norm, you stand out if you don’t join in. This is the meaning of being literate in a technological environment, and the price of not participating is exclusion.
Sometimes it’s an all-or-nothing choice, and either you adopt new literacies or you isolate yourself. I still don’t have a cell phone, and I’m beginning to feel like I have to apologize sometimes. Lucky for me I’m married to someone who is well connected. 
6 Comments
I don’t even want to THINK about how much money we spent trying to stay connected when we lived of the grid.
Satellite internet and cell phones saved our backsides.
I think you are absolutely right. Email is, I think, an example that even people of my (over 50) generation can understand. My brother refuses to get email. That means we don’t stay in touch very well. He lives a life that doesn’t require email, but it is somewhat isolating. His wife has email (but only at work!), and he does have a telephone, so he isn’t really cut off. But it makes for a huge gap between us sometimes.
Al, sometimes the “simple life” CAN get pretty damned complicated. It was 10 miles to the nearest phone at a little mom and pop store. Calling the doctor to make an appointment for an infant with who-knows-what was a major problem.
As to the email situation that Nancy mentioned, Yeah. People say, “I don’t need it. I never had it and I don’t miss it.” OK, but what about US?
In my case, podcasts and videos online are a real problem. Dial-up bandwidth doesn’t cut it for that stuff, and other solutions aren’t going to be available where I live for….? I’m doing the best I can without moving back to town or the “lower 48″ and no offense, but nobody is worth THAT.
Doug, I think a more important question to consider, rather than worry about a cell phone, is… do you have a MySpace account? Teachers ought to have one – just to understand where their kids are going, to understand the culture in which they “live”. – Mark
not much, but I’m there… http://www.myspace.com/ahlness
This is interesting because we (adults) were talking some time ago about how this would annoy the kids, adults participating in THEIR world, but now I doubt that having an account at MySpace would do much more than amuse the kids. I’m curious to see if teachers with MySpace accounts end up using them in any important way. THAT would be the telling thing. Nobody expects me to have a MySpace account, so it isn’t consequential for me to have one or not. Nobody expects me to be a blogger, either, but it has become consequential (for me) because of the use I’ve made of the practice, though I still see it as more of an “enrichment” activity than a necessary part of my everyday life.
I think that this is interesting, especially when viewed through an “age filter”. I have long considered myself behind the times when it comes to technological innovation, but I find that when I “plug into” something, I become easily frustrated with others who are choosing not to participate (in the use of MySpace, cell phones, email, what have you)
Especially when that person is younger than I.
I have stumbled into online blogs and MySpace in particular only recently and am considering what my responsibility to emerging technology as a teacher is: my students are all low income, recent immigrants who don’t move in a cyber world, but will be required to as they continue their educatio in the US and eventually move into the work force.
My question remains: what can possibly be done with MySpace that is important? It’s fun and all, but…
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