A Whole New World! Response to Net Smart Chapter 4

"If you've never read any business case histories, but if you've run a guild, or organized a raid, or spent time resolving drama and disputes in World of Warcraft, your mind-set is well prepared for the real world in a very different way than a college MBA would be prepared to run a company."

This quote that Rheingold cites from Joi Ito in Chapter 4 of Net Smart is a telling representation of our 21st century Digital Age. We live in a changed world, and it is fascinating to me that the technologies that were once seen as merely being fun are now beginning to have a different perception in mainstream society. This isn't to say that just anyone should go out and list World of Warcraft in the "Relevant Experience" field of his or her resume, but it's an interesting concept. It's nice to see that there are acknowledged benefits to "nerd culture."

There are two things that I continually appreciate about Rheingold. Firstly, as I have mentioned before, he refuses to make the digital world into a bogeyman, and he achieves this by continually linking present advancements to those of the past. For example, he says that "Social media are part of a lineage that connects cave paintings to alphabets to hyperlinks." I think that this is a brilliant comparison, and I think that if anything could sooth the worries of those who aren't prepared for digital advancements, this might solve the problem. I quoted that on my Twitter for a reason, it really made me think!

The second thing that I appreciate about Rheingold's study of the online world, is that he has fully immersed himself in it. When I am reading this book, I don't sense the words of a lofty academic reflecting on the pleasures of the "youths." Rheingold explains his own experience in virtual communities, and defends them as real places in which one can find friendship and community. This is a beautiful asset of the online world, and it is nice to see it noticed and appreciated for what it is.

His discussion of the differences between the concepts of social "networks" and social "communities" was also interesting to me. It's not something I ever considered, but it is certainly true that there is a difference between the etiquette that is required for participation in each. There may be a huge difference, for example, in the network of classmates and coworkers that one forms on his Facebook, and the fandom community that he is a part of on Tumblr. There are different rules governing different online interactions, just as there are for the face-to-face interactions of daily life. Rheingold offers several helpful tips throughout this chapter, but his tips for behavior in online communities really struck me as being important for two reasons. First, many people turn to virtual communities, and it is good to know basic etiquette. Second, it may not be obvious when it's done right, but it is excruciatingly obvious when it is done wrong.

Pictured: Facebook done wrong.

Access to the internet brings people together and enables them to stand together for causes that they believe in. The discussion on crowdsourcing brought to mind websites such as GoFundMe, Kickstarter  and Indiegogo, to name just a few. These sites have enabled dreams to become realities for so many people through the donations of supporters who are interested in the ideas of their peers. I especially liked Rheingold's classification of crowdsourcing as "playbor orgaized by and for the playborers' benefit." Wikipedia is my personal favorite example of crowdsourcing and collaboration that he discusses, because it was, for so long, such a bad word in society. If most teachers I had growing up were to define Wikipedia it would probably be as follows: "Wikipedia: n. The literal devil that leads students to sin." On the contrary, instead of collaboration leading to mass chaos, the majority of people who edit Wikipedia pages are educated, knowledgeable, and quickly fix any mistakes or pranks that may appear. While Wikipedia, like all sources, must be verified, it is an incredible example of what happens when people join together to contribute. While the system is, as Rheingold says, vulnerable to the world, the world is also what makes it invulnerable. What a cool notion!