What is an online community? Is it everyone who uses the internet? Or is it more defined to people belonging in specific online communities? I believe that an online community is a group of people that share a common interest and involve themselves, somehow in an online group that they enjoy. Therefore; a community is a group of people sharing a common interest. As Howard mentions, they are “real people who became part of my life.” This was his version of a close-knit community. A random group of people are placed together, for some reason, unknown. The complete opposite of a community would be a random group of people.
People become a part of online communities for many different reasons. Personally, I have never been a part of an online community but I have a sense of why people may join.
“But, there have been many instances in which there are, are people, for different reasons, they’re sick, or they’re, they’re in a scary part of town where they don’t want to leave they’re apartment at night. Or maybe they’re older and they don’t get around that much. Or like myself, and many others, I work at home, where am I going to get my relationships and I go, go to a bar or a coffee house or, or do I log online, so not everybody has that kind of old village, small town, everybody knows your name, physical community.” -Howard Rheingold
Howard says it perfectly here. Some people may join online communities because they feel unsafe to leave their home at night, or they are older. They may join an online community to share similarities with other people they may not have found in the real world, or in the city that they live in. Online communities have slowly been becoming everyone’s separate identity. They do not, anymore, mesh very well with the rest of our social lives, unless it is to tell your friend about a Facebook or Twitter post you saw earlier. But at the end of the day, most people have their separate social lives, and separate online identity which lies in their online community.
I totally agree with you that Facebook and Twitter become part of ourlives. Me myself, Facebook is part of my life. I share all my school achievements, and all my important things with my family members and friends and whenever I’m so busy I post a picture saying why I’m a funny post that says “Final Exams.” I feel that I have obligation to let everyone where I am and why I’m not participating. The first thing I do in the morning is to read my Facebook posts before I go to school. In short, it becomes the norm in my life.
I love that you brought up age as a factor in seeking membership in online communities. It might not be a trend now, but I wonder if, as our generation ages, we seek online communities when we become home bound. As more people who age are comfortable with online interactions, that may become a bigger motivation for seeking online relationships. I think there are parallels to be drawn here to TV in the 80’s and 90s. Those who couldn’t leave home to attend church were able to do so through televised services.
I agree that we are more segmented in our identities through online communities. People have the power to select which communities they want to join or not join a community at all. In communications past people would have to sit through everyones views at a gathering and not be able to “fast forward” or “skip” the content they did not want to hear or deal with. Online communities will still have some information that is not favorable to the user, but overall the ability to be selective makes online communities unique.
Like you stated in your blog, online communities are filled with people who have similar interests. Even though I haven’t been a member of any online communities, I have seen numerous examples of online bloggers uniting in communities. Community members usually have similar goals or likes in mind. For instance, while I’m not sure it’s an official “community”, there has been an online petition uniting people who want to get specific characters as DLC on a relatively new videogame. It has spread across several websites already, and gotten some positive feedback from a major videogame company saying that it was a worthwhile effort. This is living, or at least existing, proof that when people of similar interests unite, the impact can be enormous.
I find myself doing what you mentioned last in your blog post. If I see something interesting or relevant on Facebook, I will ask my best friend if she saw it and then we will discuss what we think about it. I do think our real social lives and online social lives are connected.
I think twitter and Facebook are actually creating new types of online communities. I follow a number of people on Twitter that write about gluten free topics ( I have celiac disease and must eat gluten free, which sucks, so its nice to be connected to others who understand my pain!). I’m not friends with these people in real life, but I do converse with them on the social media sites. Its not really the same thing as a message board or anything like that, but it is similar to an online community.