In an article appearing in the Globe and Mail a couple of weeks ago, Peter Nicholson discussed the evolution of the way people process and regurgitate information. The article touches on a topic talked about time and time again when referring to the growth of the internet, social media, and our population. The article notes that as the internet stores increasingly massive amounts of information, it is impossible for individuals to find every piece of information available to them. As a result, we find ourselves only skimming over the information relevant to our lives or our professions, and focusing in depth in these areas. Nicholson states that as a result, our population is moving away from a more general acquisition of knowledge, to a more specialized acquisition. Consequently, he says we are creating “less well-prepared minds, especially on topics outside of individual’s realms”. Or in my opinion, outside of individuals’ RSS feeds.

Nicholson touches upon a topic I have already talked about, the notion that we are living in a world that demands more of us, in less amount time available to us. Therefore, he notes that as we have less time to think, process, and find more information, the ‘market’ for depth is narrowing. We must rely on others, those subject specialists to find the information outside of our specialty, and to share this information with others. There is no way you could follow every RSS feed for every discipline, therefore we must rely on other’s in depth knowledge to provide ourselves with insight. There is an increasing compartmentalization of knowledge, where we know more and more about less and less, and as the amount of information available on the web grows, this compartmentalization is only going to continue. As Nicholson puts it, “get good at one thing and let others deal with all the issues”, but then you must accept you are not going to know everything.

The shift presently occurring is from intellectual authority from producers of depth, those traditionally thought of as the ‘experts’, to intellectual authority from the broader public. And this is where social media fits into the grand scheme of things. Not only does social media allow for those individuals who do have expert knowledge in specific areas easily and quickly share their knowledge with others (so they don’t have to follow every RSS feed available), but social media allows for individuals to become creators of information, and in time become experts.

As information professionals, we focus immensely on issues or topics pertaining to the world of information, libraries, and archives, but may lose sight of other important areas such as economics or health care. However, all one needs to do is pick up a newspaper or watch the news to get a broad idea of what is going on in these areas. But it does make you wonder, how often are issues related to libraries spoken of in the news? Rarely, therefore, how much are we missing from other disciplines that we aren’t learning from current events or newspapers that is hidden or lost in the sea of information on the internet. With social media, the in depth knowledge Nicholson speaks of may not be found by everyone, but it can be shared widely enough that everyone can have the opportunity to learn about it.

The Oxford Social Media Convention, which begins today in Oxford, England has the theme, “Assessing the Evolution, Impact and Potential of Social Media“. Now this is a convention I would have loved to attend. I have been to a couple of conferences, as I am now in the early beginnings of my career. One of which was the annual BC Library Association conference, and the other was the Public Knowledge Project conference on scholarly communications. Both were very informative, but I just can’t help to think that a social media convention would not only be informative, but really a lot of fun as well.  I would love to hear the history of social media, and examine the tools we are now using from an academic perspective.

In Kara Swisher’s blog, she posts about her upcoming experience at the conference, and touches on the issue of change. This is something I continue to hear time and time again, the issue of change. Personally, I don’t see what the issue is, but I have a feeling I can blame my generation for that. Kara talks about the perplexity many have over the growth of social media, and the evolution of a tool that many still cannot imagine. However, I see it as only a logical progression. As I said before, I do enjoy examining the growth of social media from an academic perspective, but at the same time I think sometimes the academics forget to change their thinking. When looking at social media from a users perspective, its growth makes perfect sense. When looking at the growth from the perspective of numbers or from a scientific aspect, the results are astonishing.  This change in the way individuals, scholars, politicians, and the like, are communicating could be an issue to many, but for those of us that are growing and adpating with the change, it is just evolution. It is evolution of the internet that we have seen from a young age, it is evolution of the way we communicate with one another, and it is evolution of our thought processes. In my opinion this change is not an issue, but a practical progression.

I suppose the fact that Facebook has now grown to over 300 million users since it was first introduced in early 2004 could be seen as surprising to many, as this represents an incredible growth rate, especially for a product that only uses word of mouth advertising.  For generations where it used to take awhile for things to catch on, I can see how this change could be seen as an issue. However, for those of us who have participated in social media from the beginning, I would say it is no surprise, and not as much of an issue as it is an excitement. It is very exciting to see every area of the world participating, creating, and sharing. When we begin to look at social media from these perspectives, rather than as issues or fears, it becomes much easier to see the advantages of the tools social media provides.

Well I suppose I should provide a more formal introduction than what I had posted previously. I created this blog for a course taught be Dean Guistini at the University of British Coumbia’s school of Library, Archival and Information studies. The course is on social media, an increasingly relevent topic for information professionals, librarians, and archivists. As time goes on it will be impossible to ignore the fact that social media is seeping into all aspects of our life. Even the new US president, Barack Obama, has hopped on the social media bandwagon. The endless possibilities of these tools have obviously shown their value. As the world becomes a more complicated place, where people try to do more in their days, social media is going to come to the forefront in order to support this new found lifestyle. People wont have time to provide updates longer than 140 characters, they will require Facebook to stay in touch with their acquaintances, RSS feeds will be on people’s phones so they can have up to the minute updates of their news, sports, or other interests. As time becomes a more valuable comodity, the use of social media will increase in parallel. And I can’t think of anywhere I would rather be than at the forefront.

As an avid user of Facebook, a newbie to Twitter, lover of wikis, and librarian, I could not help but sign myself up for a course on social media for information professionals. I will keep you posted (no pun intended), on all that is happening in the social media, web 2.0, and library 2.0 world.

So to start things off…

I am one of those people who does not mind openly admitting I use Facebook. When posed with the question I am sure most of us have been asked, “Do you have Facebook”, I don’t really understand those people who shyly and slightly ashamed, admit “yes”. Whereas, when someone asks me I say, “oh yes!”.

I think it is a great tool that allows people to remain in contact with so many people. I can easily admit that if I were required to only use my phone for socializing, my friend pool would be greatly diminished.  I love that anyone can share information they have learned or come across, and it puts me at ease knowing if my computer crashes my pictures are safely stored online.

As I was reading my iGoogle page recently, I was looking at the topics offered through the RSS feed for NetEffect. Being a Facebook fan, the headline that read ‘Facebook theory of economic development‘, obviously caught my eye. It is an interesting read touching on how web 2.0 is infiltrating governments worldwide,  and the different effects it has on different countries. For example, in countries where Facebook is interrupting the work of employees, some  “bureacrats are so addicted to Facebook that some contractors are beginning to complain about the slow processing of tender applications”. Whereas in other countries, Facebook means that “if public servants spend too much time on social networking, they also have less time to botch things up  during their working hours”.

I worked at an engineering office and Facebook was definitely not blocked in our work place. Many employees spent their breaks surfing the net, Facebook included. Other people I know are not so lucky. I know someone who works in a mining office and any outside internet site, including email, is blocked. Maybe they should read the numerous studies out that say the use of social media at work, and the use of ‘personal’ computer time actually can increase productivity and efficiency? Also see this blog for further information and a video on the U of M study.