This article in USAToday says that “five years after sociologist Robert Putnam documented the decline of community involvement in his book Bowling Alone,a new spirit of civic engagement is flourishing, largely because of 21st-century technology.Cell phones,e-mails, instant text messaging and Blackberries are helping mobile,busy Americans link up with neighbors on their commutes to work,in the middle of the night and on business trips”.Further.”You can’t pick up the telephone and say,’Connect me with someone else who has a kid with leukemia,’”says Howard Rheingold,author of The Virtual Community and Smart Mobs,books that document the global influence of the Internet and other technology on communities,political action and street demonstrations.The Internet is “enabling people to connect with someone specifically in their neighborhood. …It furnishes a kind of glue.People move from place to place and job to job,but they no longer need to lose touch.”
Beyond Kiwanis:Internet builds new communities
This article in USAToday says that “five years after sociologist Robert Putnam documented the decline of community involvement in his book Bowling Alone,a new spirit of civic engagement is flourishing, largely because of 21st-century technology.Cell phones,e-mails, instant text messaging and Blackberries are helping mobile,busy Americans link up with neighbors on their commutes to work,in the [...]
Comments
@ 04:02
Ten years ago we were all talking about how the internet allowed people to overcome the boundaries of geography to engage with new communities based upon shared interests.
As this USA today article (and many other articles) illustrate, in places where internet penetration has increased to the point where it’s assumed that people have access, we’re starting to realise that the really interesting thing about the internet is that it allows it’s users to engage with local people, services, and increasingly government. For this reason, I think it’s important that local communities seeking higher levels of civic and community engagement should be looking at ways of bridging the digital divide. Otherwise some will be, and in some instances already are being, left behind.
@ 10:50
>Robin
What you say is right, to the point where we are now looking at all these great bounties we in the West use daily as a new tool of oppression against those who are deprived of it.
I receive in france frequent mails from people in Africa who try to establish a network blessed with cheap, uninterrupted connection, if not with a large broadband.
Happiy, some people here understand it and participate freely (as in Nepal wireless or Jhai foundation) but our governments should think about helping those who help
@ 17:20
Yes, it’s good seeing a new sense of community in the 21st century. Putnam’s book was great at pointing out the problem of declining community. But unfortunately his solutions were all last-century rather than forward looking. The new wonderful online communities enhance new F2F communities as well.
@ 00:18
There’s a vast difference between connections and community, and so i’m not convinced that “civic engagement” is the most accurate way of describing what we see today, but the trend is right. We dont build the same kinds of relationships using cell phones, email, web etc as we do face to face. If civic society is indeed to survive, we need to make sure that our social fabric is not ultimately spun of entirely synthetic threads..
@ 14:17
The new Spirit of Civic Involvement is really a myth. The public is being defrauded by the makers of Cell phones. These phone companies are loosing money havily since their customers are cell phone service providers that buy these phones for giving them away to their customers that sign service Contracts. Hence these Phone makers are developing higher priced phones that are not really needed. For example the phone makers are making higher priced phones that have the capability of sending emails, or cell phones that have hard disks. The cell phone manufacturers do make profits by cell these high phones but do not cell many high end Phones.
The cell Phone manufacturers are very misguided because, instead of manufacturing and selling high end phones that can’t be sold, they can support financially the development of an Internet Infrastructure and Browser that will enable their low end cell phones to surf the internet like a personal Computer can. This will cause an exploision in the sales of the low end cell phones that could be sold directly to the public rather than through the cell phone service prroviders.
This is discussed in my blogs:
http://www.hackers10.blogspot.com
http://www.newerawisp.blogspot.com
http://www.spaces.msn.com/members/wirelessbrowsing