By the People

In her November 14 post, Elaine Eschenbacher asks whether new technology creates barriers that further isolate us from each other or whether it can be a tool to draw us closer together. Below is a story about a young man who used the social networking web site MySpace to find and connect people who share an interest in doing work for the common good. Do you think MySpace - and Facebook, Yahoo Groups and other online networks - are the future of organizing? Or do we need some amount of face-to-face interaction in order to do real, sustainable work together?

In this October 29 story in the New York Times, 23-year-old independent filmmaker Chaim Lazaros says he found several people on MySpace who are serious about making their communities cleaner, safer and kinder places. He "knew [he] had to tell the story” of these "everyday superheroes," and invited as many of them as he could to New York for interviews and to record them for a documentary he is making about a movement he calls Superheroes Anonymous. One of the Superheroes, who fixes faucets and does electrical work for people in need, said he started his work after a friend was hurt by debris that had fallen from scaffolding. “I said to myself, if we have to wait around for the city or the mayor to fix everything wrong or dangerous in this city, it’ll never get done.” Most of the Superheroes interviewed for the story were from New York; their work includes picking up trash, protecting prostitutes, and helping tourists and others who are lost.

The occasion of starting a blog seems like a perfect opportunity to question the role of technology in civic engagement and public work.

Despite its enormous potential for enhancing communication, technology is often cited as a major barrier to creating an environment where people are connected and engaged in public work. A University of Minnesota student I interviewed recently provided examples: “The things that come to mind are computers, Internet, television, iPods and Palm Pilots. It keeps people in isolation because when everything is just a touch of a button away, why engage?”

A student at Minneapolis Community and Technical College told me “the downfall of society [is] air conditioning. It used to be that in the summertime when it was hot, everyone would sit on the front porch and the neighbor kids would all play together. Back then, we knew every kid in the neighborhood. Now everybody stays in their house with their air-conditioning, playing their video games and watching cable TV.”

Do people who care about civic engagement have technology to blame? To thank? Both?