Is Web 2.0 redefining what it means to be social? It is still common to refer to someone who does not talk very much to other people as "antisocial." And on the other side, a person who loves to talk to other people is called a "social butterfly." In 1921 the psychologist Carl Jung published a book entitled Psychological Types which studies the different behaviors people possess. From Jung's work, the mother and daughter team of Katherine Briggs and Isabel Myers began the process of creating an instrument that could be used to discover the unique personality traits of an individual. One of the main categories in the Myers-Briggs Indicator is the introverted and extroverted qualities of a person. This tool is one of the most popular personality tools available, and I have personally taken the test a number of times. My thought now is in regards to the word "social." If Web 2.0 is about being social, then is it possible to be introverted in your normal human interactions but extroverted in the world of Web 2.0? Will we reach a point in the world where a person can be considered anti-social if they are not participating in the Web 2.0 environment? After spending so much time investigating just a few Web 2.0 tools, I have noticed that social is becoming a prefix for most of these tools, and having the ability to post, comment, and rate is a common feature to all of the social sites. By using Twitter or Facebook, people can be more social than ever almost to the point of being too social. On Facebook, we can truly decide who we are friends are and what information we want them to know about our lives, and when we are tired of that person, we can "unfriend" them. From using Facebook and Twitter, I have a fairly good idea of which friends are doing well in life, who is having a hard time, what significant events are going on even though I have not heard that friend's voice for over 20 years. Is this being social? Is the behavior of being social changing throughout the world, and how does this effect what we teach in classrooms and how we are to act as human beings? Those are just some light thoughts as I try to wrap up the social networking side of my inquiry project which focuses on using LiveBinder, Google Reader, Twitter, and Shelfari.
MBTI Type Today. (n.d.). About the MBTI. A mini-history of the MBTI intrument. Retrieved November 20, 2011, from
I have always like MBTI. I had never thought about it regarding Facebook and other social networking. You make a good point. In the classroom we have to teach them how to be social yet some are social in the new way and have difficulty being socially appropriate in the real world. I would say it is a new kind of social which is both good and bad. Like you say you have fairly good idea how people are but I still think a phone call or sitting down to coffee is always preferred.
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