There's nothing new about
social networks. Sociologists have been studying the diverse, highly complex ties that connect "nodes" or individuals for more than a century.
What has changed is the role of technology in providing vehicles for vast, new networks linking disparate people, whose commonalities are otherwise hidden. For example, by reading this weblog, you share a common experience with thousands of individuals with whom you have no other known common network.
Yet some readers of this site are friends on
Facebook , the skyrocketing network founded just five years ago this month.
Below, ninth graders prepare speeches aimed at combatting apathy on the topic of Belgian King Leopold II and his ghastly enslavement of the Belgian Congo a century ago.
And here, they use the steps of Maxwell Savage Hall as London's famed Speakers' Corner to heighten awareness and stimulate social activism.
Dozens of social networks link our global population. By signing up (for free) with
Twitter, you can "follow" people (starting with me!) as we answer the question "What are you doing?" in 140 characters or less. It's a kind of spontaneous mini-blog.
Twitter comes with extensive jargon. A posted message is a "tweet." A message you later regret is a "mistweet." A tweet that uses exactly 140 characters is a "twoosh."
People who tweet in Twitter are "twitterers," or "tweeple."
If you send too many tweets, you're suffering from "twitterrhea."
Congrats to our still-undefeated JV boys basketball team!
And congrats to the student rock band Pillbug Light Reaction, which tweated us....excuse me....treated us to a great show last night.
I aspire to become a member of the twitterati.
Mountain Classroom is excited!
