Community. It’s a word that we throw around a lot. But what does it actually mean? And why do we care?
Let’s start with the last question. Why do we care?
In an age obsessed by the idea of community, I’m surprised to see that the idea is so poorly understood. Yet community is one of the the most important words of our era.
One of our greatest desires is to participate in a community. We need the interaction with others. We crave the recognition of our friends, our families, our — communities. In many traditions, the greatest punishment that can be meted out is banishment, ostricization – forced removal from our community.
Our attachment to community is primordial, a driving force, something we crave in at the most basic levels of our existence.
Some would claim that this craving for community is at the root of the force that we all call “social media”. I would claim that we don’t really understand this –and if we did, our social media approach and behaviours would be vastly different.
Three events converged this week which pushed me to reexamine the ideas that I had about community and social media. Continue reading
Change the game... 