So it’s looking increasingly like this is going to be an end of the day thing. I think I can live with that.
I’ve been blogging in various shapes or forms for ten year now, and as I was clicking through to some of the other blog posts being written as part of #28daysofwriting, I was reflecting on some of the changes that seem to have taken place, culturally around blogs.
As well as there being far more of them now, and teachers blogging seems to be much more culturally acceptable, I was particularly struck by the way that I seemed to want to interact with them in some way. Ten years ago you read a post, and you sometimes commented. And I was content with that relationship, both and a reader and a blogger.
Then along came Twitter and we (I?) started to get used to having quick conversations about things that we posted online, or things that we’d seen.
Then Facebook came along and that reaction could now be summed up in a ‘like’. And now we can retweet, favourite, like or +1 to our hearts content.
Now, I find myself reading through blogs from people I have no existing relationship with, and wanting to mark in some way that I’ve read it. In a few cases I left comments, but in others I didn’t really have anything to add, and it felt a bit weird just typing ‘Hi, I liked your blog post’.
It’s interesting that a few WordPress blogs actually have a ‘like’ button now as well as the sharing to Twitter, Facebook etc, but this is still the exception rather than the norm.
Having written all of this, I’m wondering where I’m going with it…
I think it’s that the social aspect of social media has quietly and unnoticed (by me) changed the way that we react online with people that we’ve never met, and probably never will. It doesn’t seem enough just to consume what they’ve created any more, I want to mark it in some way.
I might just adding a smiley face in the comments and see what happens 🙂
Image credit: Facebook like stamp by SEO. CC Licensed on Flickr
I think the same way Dave – but I specifically see these new cursory interactions as putting an end to the longer reaction or comment discussion that regularly occurred many years ago.
I think a focus on commenting would be another good campaign – discussion has been certainly stirred by the increase in published reflections from peers but the art of commenting and discussing is a fading part of our community. We need it back.
I’ve been commenting on a few posts each day via the hashtag. For me, the key thing was wanting to acknowledge I had read a post, but didn’t really have anything intelligent to say in response!
In the old days I would have just moved on, in this world of RTs and +1 I want to acknowledge that in some way!