Can Social Media Bridge Enclaves?
November 23rd, 2009 by John Creighton in Dispatches
Tags: Accidental Extremists, Social Media, WTC
I wrote last week that Americans are accidental extremists. We are making choices that inadvertently results in more and more of us living in homogeneous enclaves. Our opportunities to engage with people who have different world views are in decline.
Our choices of traditional media tend to reinforce our preconceived views. We choose to live in neighborhoods with people who have similar life experiences. We send our children to schools with students just like them.
Bill Bishop, author of The Big Sort, documents that our churches are becoming more homogeneous, too. We Americans shop for churches in the same way we shop for neighborhoods and parents shop for schools. Our choices of religious affiliation have less and less to do with family histories or the community of our upbringings. Church membership is becoming yet another form of individual self-expression.
There certainly is merit in attending a church because you want to rather than merely out of obligation. A reverend friend told me recently that it is far easy to minister now than when he began his career twenty years ago. People want what we have to offer when they choose to be part of our church, he said. An unintended consequence of church shopping is it is one more mediating institution that is becoming less diverse.
The evidence is that when people isolate themselves in homogeneous enclaves they develop more strident views. People’s ability to understand the perspectives of those outside their enclave atrophies when they don’t have opportunities to engage. Empathy is like a muscle. It requires use.
A recent study issued by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, Social Isolation and New Technology, suggests that social media tools – for instance, Facebook, Twitter and blogs – may be one method we can use to bridge divides between enclaves.
The Pew study confirms that the diversity of people’s core discussion networks has markedly declined. But, the study suggests, the reason for the decline in discussion networks is not due to use of newer information and communication technologies. Indeed, participation in a variety of internet activities were associated with larger and more divers core discussion networks, according to the study.
The Pew study resonates with my experience. I maintain a blog. I’m on Facebook and Twitter. I engage with people through these social media forums who self identify themselves as very conservative, very liberal and points in between. I do not typically engage with the most conservative and liberal people in my “offline” life. I would be unlikely to have the opportunity to gain the benefit of their perspective if we weren’t all engaged in social medial conversations.
I have friends and acquaintances who annoy the hell out of me – often using social media tools to deliver their message. But, they help to keep me honest. They help me to examine my own views more closely. I believe that’s healthy.
* * *
Picture Credits: Bridge by Flickr user digital kid2007.
One Response to “Can Social Media Bridge Enclaves?”
This is an interesting topic, and I think you have identified some real trends. Is it possible that there are countervailing trends that make it more likely one will encounter a person with a substantially different worldview than his own? I believe there are, and one example is globalization in the workplace. In the last dozen years or so, I have had the opportunity to work with people from Algeria, Japan, China, Singapore, Germany, Poland, Mexico, Brazil, Puerto Rico, Canada, France, England, Ireland, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, Scotland, Taiwan, India, Mauritius, Sweden, Lebanon and Italy. I’m sure that I am forgetting many others. In many instances, the interactions were short-lived and functional – to get a specific job done and move on. In other cases, I have been fortunate enough to develop genuine friendships. Another example of the opportunity to experience ideas other than one’s own is found on newspaper Web sites. Take a look at the Times-Call’s Web site whenever a political issue is discussed. The comments are often angry, but it is clear that liberals and conservatives are reading each other’s postings, even if only to gather ammunition to fire back.