Like a lot of us, New_ Public wants to reimagine social media. If you subscribe to their Substack, you may be asked a few simple but deep questions. I like this — if you take it seriously, it slows you down to engage through our oldest digital social network, email.
Here are the questions and my answers:
What is your favourite public space: Sidewalk Cafés or in the median, Montréal style. Also, public plazas and squares, like the way Churchill Square/City Hall Plaza in Edmonton were before the pandemic.
Why it matters: These are neutral spaces where anyone can do anything, but they are also social spaces, so people expect to interact socially with strangers and friends. At least if they are healthy! When they become unhealthy, these spaces are fearful and policed. They can no longer function as the peoples’ place and be granted an unsupervised autonomy — they pass from zones of implicit trust to zones of suspicion. Any street or alley is subject to the same dynamics.
Can aspects of this space be translated into digital spaces? Yes, it can be done in real-time digital communication spaces like Zoom and possibly chat groups, but the relative anonymity of chat always keeps you guessing. Videoconferencing with people speaking and seeming to be more physically present supports the same kind of tenuous social trust that strangers can develop in chance encounters in public spaces. If this is supported by the much more established asynchronous connector of letters, emails, and other “long form writing” over time, I believe this brings out the best in people, in terms of trust, deepening relationships, shared thinking, and creativity.
What do you think?
Can your favourite public space be translated to digital media? Are there any strong analogies between physical and digital social spaces?
A majority of people today might say blog comments or any type of commenting online is a terrible idea — the digital equivalent of a dive bar where there’s always a fight rather than your friendly neighbourhood sidewalk cafe.
But then again, many of us use forms of commenting and direct messaging for team communications and project management every day. They can have their drawbacks too, but open conflict is not a common complaint and would point to problems within a team or company culture.
Dave Winer thinks comments are almost universally a bad idea, and if you want to communicate with others online, you should do it with your own (federated?) blog. That’s pretty much how we discussed the topic on our respective blogs, X, and Mastodon accounts. 😊
I am more hopeful for well-tended digital commons. Public discourse online and in person works when an informal, unwritten etiquette is followed, but it has to be nurtured and protected. The more open and public the forum is, the more important it is to have onboarding and passive feedback mechanisms to protect the commons of “free” public speech. Blog comments on by default with no other efforts made to craft a healthy communication space are a bad idea — I agree with that.
What’s your favourite digital equivalent of a chatty sidewalk cafe? Do you have one?
