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Now, I'm sure a very interesting post could be
written – indeed, I'd be amazed if things hadn't been written –
looking at the phenomenon of social media and its worldwide adoption,
what it means to communities in general, its economic and social
impact, etc. That's not what I'm about on this blog, though. No, in
this post I will be looking at and setting forth my own views on the
use of social media by Quaker organisations and individuals. This has
relevance to our own community – how we communicate with one
another – as well as the wider community, outreach, how we are
presented and how we appear to the wider world. I do not claim to be
presenting a well-researched guide to using social media, either in
principle or practice. This is merely some observations from my own
reasoning (for the principles) and experience (for the practice), and
reflection on both.
It’s hardly surprising, given liberal Quaker
demographics, that there are plenty of people in our community –
even some fairly weighty Friends – who are uncomfortable about
social media and sceptical of its value. There’s all the stories in
the media about how dangerous, how harmful to mental health social
media is for young people (apparently thanks to addiction, bullying
and the usual image problems), or how full it is of abusive
behaviour; the former has some mixed evidence, and it’s certainly
clear that some bad things happen on social media. Doxxing, the
practice of publishing someone’s personal information without their
permission, along with other forms of harassment, have made it a
dangerous place for some – even physically dangerous, as seen in
the ‘hilarious’ (abhorrent) practice of ‘SWATing’ - reporting
a dangerous, violent crime as happening at the person’s address.
This began largely in relation to people who would live-stream
themselves playing video games, because people thought it was funny
to see their reaction to armed police bursting through their door,
but it has happened – so I understand – in cases where people are
actually reacting to someone saying something they don’t like, even
when they won’t be able to witness it on Twitch.
Yet many who use social media find it an amazing
boon. It’s been used to organise protest movements, facilitates
networking for communities who find it difficult by more traditional
means, and allows people to find connection, to feel connected, who
might otherwise be isolated. It has also certainly been effective for
marketing, provided you have the know-how and the budget. We need
only look at its reported importance in recent elections and
referenda in various countries to know how much of an impact it can
have – including when it is used dishonestly. Even where it is
useful, that same usefulness is a peril; that does not remove,
however, that usefulness, nor render it inherently unsafe.
Controversial. |
Social media was created for a positive impact.
That it has had negative impacts due to what I can only characterise
as misuse (both abuse of individuals and nefarious uses for political
purposes) does not negate the positive impact that it has, and that
it has had. Thus, while we must be wary of misuse, and pitfalls that
face users, we would also be wrong to write it off as a bad deal. Let
us now explore some of the benefits and how they can be leveraged –
as well as how we might be disappointed – before we consider the
downsides in the specific Quaker context.
Before I
continue, however, it’s worth considering blogging and how it
relates to social media. It predates the idea of social media, yet
many blogging platforms have social functions or some degree of
interaction with social networks, and at least two of the popular
social networks describe themselves in terms of blogging: Twitter is
considered, and has described itself as, a ‘microblogging’
platform, and Tumblr straight out refers to what it provides as
blogs, though the social features are the most prominent. Some
blogging platforms are extremely social in their outlook, like
Livejournal and its descendants (such as Dreamwidth and the possibly
defunct Blurty) who have a system of friends-locking posts, finding
people with common interests, and ‘communities’ as (potentially)
moderated groups for discussion of shared interests. Even
free-standing blogging software often has features to enable
community use of the software, or integration with social networking
platforms. Even if that weren’t the case, we have now reached a
point where social media has become the glue that holds the
blogosphere together, and a successful blogger (depending on how you
measure success) is going to have to make sure their blog connects
with social networks. As such, it is necessary to consider blogging
as part of the social media landscape.
Blogging can be like this, except you won't know for a while if the megaphone is turned on. |
The bazaar analogy is taken from the idea of The Cathedral and the Bazaar, a
treatise on software development and the open source community by
Eric S Raymond, and bears more consideration here – though a proper
examination of it for the context of Quaker thought will require more
space. Essentially, it is an exploration of the ways in which open
source software can be developed, and characterises two models. In
the cathedral, a small group have tight control, work on things and
test things privately, and then release their products (complete with
source code) in major releases that they have some confidence about.
This closely mirrors how software was generally developed in
commercial contexts, and how some still are – though newer
methodologies are somewhat displacing this pattern, often based on
the principles of the bazaar model. In that approach, by contrast,
the constantly-changing source code is available to all at all times,
development versions can be regularly downloaded to be tested by all,
and anyone can offer to contribute fixes or new features. The same
distinction can be seen in the evolution of a spiritual community,
although the cathedral of the metaphor is a reference to architecture
rather than religion. Nevertheless, it can be seen that in episcopal
churches – in the sense of the existence of an episcopate, not in
reference to churches of the Anglican Communion – there is a strong
sense of central authority, while in congregationalist churches –
again, in the sense of governance not of adherence to a particular
identity – the authority is shared, decentralised. Quaker Yearly
Meetings vary in the extent to which they resemble each, with some
hewing more closely to a congregational approach and others with a
greater sense of the Yearly Meeting having a degree of governance
over the worshipping communities. Nonetheless, I would argue that it
is in the nature of our faith that growth and development of that
faith will tend to come from the ground up, and not be governed by a
central authority; exploration of that argument will have to wait for
another occasion, however, as I am straying from the topic.
Used correctly,
social media also allows you to reach people you could never expect
to reach otherwise, nor sometimes that you would ever suspect you
might reach. I imagine most of you have heard of the expression “to
go viral”, meaning that a post shared initially among a relatively
small community is suddenly shared all over the place, popping up in
unexpected places and being seen by thousands or millions when the
poster might have expected to be seen by dozens only, perhaps
hundreds. Marketing firms make good money advising on strategies to
make advertising or PR material go viral, and a relatively obscure
musical artist from Korea can become the most-watched video online
through what seems happenstance. Now, Quakers probably have limited
interest in going viral in that way – though it wouldn’t be out
of place for some of our social action work. However, that sort of
viral propagation is an extreme instance of a more general pattern
that run a whole spectrum from “hey, friends of friends that I
don’t know about how seen my work” through “holy cow, why am I
getting so many views from Poland?” and up to the “everyone is
talking about that think I posted, WTF?”. If I write something and
pass it around some Ffriends in a lower-tech way, like emailing it,
and no-one uses social media, it’s hard for it to get far. Social
media has been designed in such a way, however, that when something
attracts interest it can snowball. Not only can people share things
with one (or maybe three) clicks, but just ‘liking’ or
‘favouriting’ something increases the number of people that see
it. This creates a more organic sort of propagation (hence the
appropriateness of the term ‘viral’), and the nature of the
social networks – using the term in its old-fashioned sense –
involved means that it ends up being seen most by the people who are
more likely to be interested. The social networks – in the new,
technological sense – have also done work to increase that effect,
to learn through various methods (including the much-maligned and
misunderstood ‘AI’) which people want to see what content and
from what sources. Thus it was that a
piece I wrote about the whole poppy thing (worn in the UK in
relation to remembrance, around Armistice Day and Remembrance Sunday
in November) ended up rapidly becoming my most read blog post, and
nothing has ever caught up with it. It was more thoroughly shared
across more networks, partly because of its appeal beyond the Quaker
audience, than anything else I’ve written.
The potential of
this organic propagation for Quakers is twofold. First, it makes it
easier for ideas and content to spread across the online Quaker
community, which is part of the democratising impact mentioned above.
Second, it means that Quaker ideas have a fair shot at being seen by
more non-Quakers. I do not mean this in terms of advertising, which
is a possibility that I will cover below (amongst pitfalls and
disappointments). Rather, it is a matter of the increased chance of
people ‘naturally’ finding Quaker thought, the possibility that
people will ‘stumble upon’ something that speaks to them (or
not). This is not to be sniffed at, given the number of convinced
Friends who seem to have found their way to Quakers more or less
accidentally. As people spend more of their time exploring things
online, having a presence and a participation in the space in which
they explore is the only way Quakers will still have people find us
in this way – and with liberal Friends often opposed to anything
that even smells of proselytisation, being found in this way is
important if we wish to keep being found at all. It is also of
benefit to those who are looking, for whatever reason, to find more
writing (or videos or podcasts) about Quaker thought, Quaker
theology, Quaker processes; social media makes it easier to find
things, at least when it’s working properly, and helps us stumble
into things that we were looking for, even when we were not actively
looking at a particular time. We can join groups, follow subreddits,
or just plain follow interesting people and ease ourselves into a
community, ask questions. We can do all of that in a way that feels
(and usually is) relatively safe, in all sorts of senses of the word.
Not an accurate physical representation |
It has been noted
since long before the advent of social media that people online tend
to behave in ways that experience suggests they probably do not when
interacting in person. This can be in big or small ways; anonymity or
even the simple lack of a clearly present other person
seems to lead to people caring less for how others might see their
behaviour. Some have argued that this even amounts to having less
regard for the feelings of others in these situations. Anyone who’s
spent much time in user-generated or interactive parts of the
internet, even going back to Usenet, one of the oldest services
operated over the internet (indeed, it arguably predates the
internet). This was the first world-wide computer based “message
board”, to use more recent terminology, in which anyone could roll
up, find a relevant community (known as a “news group”), read
posts and share their own via the medium of the “network news
transfer protocol”, or NNTP. It was (still is, albeit much
less-used than it once is) a relatively lawless place (except in the
heavily moderated
minority of moderated groups), though creation of new groups was
somewhat policed. Well before modern social media, there was a Quaker
newsgroup, soc.religion.quaker
– I even hung out there a little when I was still quite new to
Friends. I can’t
comment on what the people in that group were like generally (there
was the odd fracas while I was there), but in general it was well
known back in the oldest days of Usenet that people would act in ways
that you would struggle to imagine they acted in person. Trolls and
flamewars abounded, and though claims of usage of the term ‘troll’
on Usenet and BBS forums (I’ll skip the rabbit-hole of explaining
‘BBS’) have never been verified, the behaviour has certainly been
documented. There’s plenty of psychological theories about why this
happens, but there are two simple truths we must acknowledge when
talking about being a Quaker online: our interactions are not limited
to fellow Quakers, and Quakers are human and sometimes fall into the
same problems with behaviour as everyone else in any case. Thus doing
Quaker things online is going to run into these problems – whether
it’s social media or anything else interactive.
Related to this,
and as mentioned above, the possibility of making a rapid response
can easily tempt people into doing so before they have properly
digested the discussion so far. In my experience, knee-jerk responses
tend to widen existing divisions, rather than helping to bridge gaps.
Sober thought and taking time over responses can help to build those
bridges. Social media doesn’t have the cues that we have in some
Quaker contexts to remind people to take time to respond, and it
doesn’t have the cues of in-person interaction to encourage people
to make a response that is socially acceptable – polite, moderate,
not recklessly offensive. If people, as we are often wont, see
immediately the things that we disagree with, and immediately speak
up about them, then we fail in two ways. First, we respond only to
what we’ve disagreed with, without spending time to understand
where it is coming from and discern things that we have in common.
Second, and possibly more important in some situations, we don’t
actually respond to the things we disagree with in the most helpful
or effective way. Sure, call out racism online, for example – but
take time to understand where it is coming from and engage with the
whole of the content that included racism. As long as we don’t
succumb to the temptation to react immediately to our first
impressions, voice the first thing that comes to us, there is no
problem. The same is true when we communicate in person - it’s just
that whatever causes the disinhibition of online interactions comes
into play as well when the interaction is online.
What a concerted online attack can feel like. |
Social media
presents exciting opportunities, as well as risks, but one big risk
is disappointment. To hear some people talk about social media, we
might think we just need a Facebook page, an Instagram account, a
Twitter account, and someone taking care of them with regular posts
and responsible replies, and we will have a huge surge in interest.
Sadly, it rarely works like that (though sometimes you get lucky). If
you want to get the most out of social media, it takes skill and
knowledge (which you might have to pay for), and usually some actual
budget for ads or ‘promoted posts’. This can be relatively cheap,
but you won’t get much out of an advertising budget on social media
without also having
the knowledge and skills to make use of it. Don’t expect social
media to solve problems without having a solid reason and knowledge
base to have confidence that it can solve a particular problem in an
effective way. Social media is a tool – really, several tools –
and it’s a matter of knowing the tools, and using them
appropriately.
I hope that this
has given some idea of the power and benefits of social media, as
well as the pitfalls and perils, both for the collective mass of
individual Friends who want to share ideas – or just socialise –
and for Meetings and other Quaker organisations. Many such
organisations have made effective use of social media, others have
had disappointments, and the same is true of individuals. But by
approaching it realistically, eyes wide open, and with proper
preparation and expectations, we can continue to make good use of it
and to reap the benefits. Yes, there are pitfalls, and we need to
communicate about those and share those experiences. But if we want a
modern, forward looking Religious Society – and I feel clear in
myself that that is what we should want – in which we talk about
things, share ideas and experiences, we would be hobbling ourselves
appallingly if we neglect modern tools such as social media.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Did you enjoy this post, or find it interesting, informative or stimulating? Do you want to keep seeing more of these posts? Please consider contributing to my Patreon. More information is available in the post announcing my use of Patreon.
Did you enjoy this post, or find it interesting, informative or stimulating? Do you want to keep seeing more of these posts? Please consider contributing to my Patreon. More information is available in the post announcing my use of Patreon.