It has been a year since I posted here last. After attending Graphing Social Patterns West (GSP West) last year, I wanted to better understand the social and anthropological implications of the emerging social web. Our typical real-world social interactions and social development isn’t typical any more. Let’s look back at how societies behave with technology advances.
When Gutenberg developed printing press technology suddenly mass distribution of ideas changed who had access to knowledge. Although our social behavior didn’t change fundamentally, how we were influenced by new ideas did. Europe and the world changed as power shifted to those who controlled the press and distribution. A few centuries later the telephone appeared on the scene. This technology changed how we lived. People could now move about and remain in contact with families and social groups with some ease. Instantaneous news, social updates and influence changed societies. Social groups and political affiliations could transfer ideas and knowledge in seconds. In places where the telephone took hold, and two way communications flourished people garnered more power and influence. Then came the television which we quickly embraced. Somehow our primal desires were fed, and how networks and societies where the technology was well adopted became easier for governments to control. Even if that wasn’t their intent. We got a little lazy, even if ideas moved more freely, we could not provide instantaneous response.
Along comes the internet and now ideas and groups made rapid and massive knowledge exchange possible and fed the machine. HTML and its subsequent iterations have accelerated knowledge and enhanced ideas. We are only beginning to absorb the implications of this shift. Now we have the social web, which organizes and collects people and knowledge and distributes it just as quickly. In time we will better understand the power of this technology and how much it will influence societies, networks and people. What we are going to find is that we matter, I matter and most of all YOU have the power to influence and change people and networks in an instant and around the world. What are you going to do with that power? I will talk a little about this on our upcoming webinar on April 21 at 4pm EST. Come join us!
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