My facebook Friends

To me how I get information is more important then the information I get. For instance, I can listen to preaching about a particular passage of the Bible forever, but it is essential in order for me to understand it I must read it myself and live it. From there the source is very important. I read somewhere recently that Thomas Jefferson did not read the newspaper but rather would ask people around him about it. That way, if you know the person at all, their perspective on the story comes through, often times with broadcast media the perspective is hard to uncover or so shades the story it is hard to believe it at all.

How does this relate to facebook for me. At this time facebook is nothing more than a way for me to communicate with friends. I have twitter on it, so they can know what I am doing at anytime, I post articles and sometimes my own blog. I also read the announcements and other public material my friends are posting. This allows me to not only gather information that is useful coming from my community, but also gives me filters as people comment on what they post. My community no has direct influence on how I learn, the same influence that broadcast media once had. Sure often times this means I get links of ping-pong, or funny commercials, or business time. I am alright with that because even entertainment and humor is influenced by my community. Now as much as I wish it were not true I do not like everyone that I am influenced by, daily I have to deal with opinions and views that might not be in line with mine, but it is important for me to interact and listen to those who I may not agree with or even like. In the same way I am willing to include many in my facebook friends, giving them a voice in my life. It is clear and easy to understand who has the most influence, look at those who I have the most connections with and those who interact the most. Sure facebook could develop some more formal settings or names for those you connect with to make this more clear, but why.

Just for fun or if you haven't got enough of my rambling on this, check out an post that influenced my thinking on this:

http://scobleizer.com/2007/08/28/the-eight-ways-you-can-be-my-friend-or-enemy-online/