Dit is het derde bericht van serie van vier berichten met als onderwerp ‘leven in een digitale wereld’. Deze berichten zijn allen onderdeel van het vak ‘living in a digital world’, onderdeel van de track ‘New Media and Communication’, afstudeerrichting van het masterprogramma ‘Communication Studies’. Het door mij gekozen thema bij aanvang van dit vak was ‘het hebben van meer sociale contacten in de digitale wereld’. Aan de hand van de wekelijkse artikelen heb ik gezocht naar verklaringen en zijn er nieuwe vragen bovengekomen. Reacties en / of opmerkingen zijn altijd welkom!

Introduction

To start this reflection, I want to introduce my theme during this course. In my opinion is having more social contacts a great advantage of living in a digital world. A larger social network is in my opinion a great improvement of life because it has advantages for networking, gaining knowledge, and social activities. I am trying to gain more knowledge by reflecting the articles of this week on my theme. Is having more social contacts really an advantage? How did we create the possibilities to create more social contacts? And how do these new digital social contacts compare to face-to-face social contacts?

Meeting more local people

The article of Mitchell (1996) gives an overview of building transformations in different sectors like bookstores, galleries, theaters and schoolhouses. Although this is a thirteen year old article, it gives some interesting views on the development of the digital world. For me, an important point in this article was the much-quoted aphorism by Winston Churchill: we make our buildings and our buildings make us. The author states that it is time to update this aphorism to the following: we make our networks and networks make us. To me, this sounds very interesting after reading the article of Churchill and Ubois (2009), who make a point about the definition of ‘local’. The term ‘local’ was not only used to describe things physically proximate, but also to relate to affiliation and personal identity. When I reflect these definitions on the shift from institutions supported by buildings to institutions supported by networks, it creates the possibility to meet people who are not only physically proximate, but also individuals who are close to your personal identity, and where you have an easy connection with because of the shared interests. By expanding this possibility to meet ‘local’ individuals, individuals can expand their social network.
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