Net Smart: Chapters 5-6

Chapter 5 starts by talking about small world networks and 6 degrees of separation. He went on to explain the bell curve and the 80/20 rule. Then he explains how social networks are changing society and analyzes different types of social network positions.

Rheingold insists that online networks are as robust as real life networks. Probably so, for him. Rheingold is online for a living. Therefore, he is going to get out of his networks exactly what he puts in. I suspect his online ties are stronger than most people's.

In this chapter, when he discusses Granovetter, he also outlines specifically how he goes about finding and interviewing people. I think we can therefore cross that question off our class list of what to ask during our Skype meeting with Rheingold.

The research organization called MITRE has a 7-thousand person social network in which people played different roles, like bridge, or network entrpreneur (broker). These roles definitely existed before social media and have always been played. The only new part is that they are now online, so they have a farther reach.

I laughed when Rheingold talked about networked individualism. I remember those first calls usually started with "where are you?"  My mom still starts all her calls to my cell phone like that.

Social capital--who helps whom, who gets answers or results, who builds a reputation of power? Interesting that he follows that discussion with talk of southern Italy. Mafiosi build their networks on social capital. He says that in northern Italy people were able to build social capital to thrive economically. Well, some were, but most were not. Noble families prospered, regular families didn't. The hoards of working- and lower-classes did not benefit much from the wealth of the northern bankers and merchants. In the south, because the power structure was corrupt and barely post-feudal, the regular folk built social capital in small family groups and ties (mafia) because they couldn't count on the landowners. "I know a guy who knows a guy..." Putnam and his colleagues ignore the differences in language and racial background between the north and south of Italy. I agree that the south is mired in a social system of distrust, but believing that the difference in economics stems strictly from the south having been under the feudal system a bit longer than the north is overly simplistic.

The PLN is a great concept, again one that always existed, but is more robust and far flung since the advent of social media and networks.

Rheingold and I agree heartily upon a topic: Facebook. Like him, I am a skeptic, and don't use it beyond lurking every so often. I find very little good in it, but I keep my page up just to keep some ties open. I have helped and participated just enough to stay current, and I've removed myself, in my opinion, enough to be almost a non-user. If I'm not "friends" with past high-school chums and ex-coworkers in real life, I don't need to be sharing my personal and family info with them online. Much less do I need to share online for the corporations to more effectively market their nonsense to me.

Chapter 6 talks about privacy, politics, and ownership. Rheingold raises great points about each. He talks about an article by Boeder that discusses the public sphere. Huge props to Rheingold for recommending this article, even though he is portrayed unfavorably in it. Many people would not be big enough to overlook the slight.

The section about remixing reminded me of the KUWP last summer, where we took ideas and remixed them. Ownership is always tricky.

The parenting blur by boyd was a little heavy handed. Do parents really not know that? Or shall I say, are the parents who don't know that reading this book?

I love how Rheingold gives an outline in key bullet points of the whole book at the end. A great review to recap the main ideas of the book.

He ends by advocating for digital literacy programs in schools, and for positive personal action, and says it's up to us, his readers, to create a meaningful digital future.

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What I want to learn in this class

• discover, tinker with, and create using new (to me) digital tools
• create a digital written and/or spoken piece that can be used for instruction or play (or both)
• get user feedback from participants (or classmates)

What I want to avoid in this class

• work in a large group of 6+ people
• work on a project that doesn't inspire me personally or professionally