Robert Pagliarini reminds us that social networking has a dark side. It offers GroupThink in exchange for individuality, creativity, differences, and independent thinking.
He argues that the Internet is now one big high school cafeteria. Jocks over here, nerds over there, brainiacs back there, stoners over . . . uh, stoners?
Robert suggests ways to maximize creativity and limit groupthink:
1. Join groups and communities completely different, even the opposite, from your beliefs.
2. Try to understand their perspective and why they believe what they believe.
3. Become Facebook friends with people who think differently, who surprise you and who cause you to question your ideas.
4. Read blogs and websites with original content, not just rebranded, recycled ideas.
5. Disagree and enter into friendly discussions by posting respectful comments on blogs.
He summarizes his point with, “The more you are a fan of someone, the more often you need to question their assumptions and ideas. We tend to let our mental guard down around those we trust.”
I wonder if anyone else notices the groupthink in teacher blogs? Thankfully, not as much of it exists in the ed tech field. Yes?
Thanks for the post Robert! I love your description . . . “assist people to break social codes.” I’ll be working on a part 2 to this blog post shortly…
Thanks, Robert, for your comment. I look forward to part 2.