One-way glass Syndrome
May 26, 2008 by liping
It just occurred to me that the asynchronous online environment is like one-way glass. Audience can read (see) what’s going on in the online space without being seen. Often times, the writers have no ideas whether their contribution have been read. Without the physical presence online, writers have to depend on the comments to know their words actually reach others. No comments = nobody cares. Nothing can discourage a writer more than that.
For members in an online community, they take on the roles of writers and readers at the same time. The interesting thing is that although they are like comments as writers, they also seldom comment on others as readers. This is easy to be interpreted as just selfish act. but I think there should be something deeper. For example, it can be associated with
- knowledge ( e.g. I don’t know much about what he/she is talking about, so better keep my mouth shut.)
- habit ( e.g. I prefer to write commentary on my own blog. )
- technology threshold (e.g. I need to log in to comment? Why bother.)
- perceptions (e.g. I simply have nothing to comment on. )
- preference (e.g. I don’t want others to see my comment. I will shoot the write an email.)
On the other hand, there are some motivators for commenting act:
- rule of reciprocity ( e.g. This post is really useful. The guy left me a comment, I’d better leave him one as well.)
- clarification (e.g. I don’t quite understand, better ask. )
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I really like the way you described the asynchronous communication as a one-way glass. I guess I am too into a “immediate response” type of person. Therefore I lost the sensitivity to see this issue more clearly. Can I quote this post in my paper?? haha
Something comes out from my work that people see each other as competitors, esp students. They would read, but dun wanna write. Of coz it is also asso with your points above. But when their performance is being assessed, they really dun wanna share their digested thoughts publically. They see their words are their effort. Then y some ppl could jsut go to the forum and get all the digested essence out of the content?
haha, you are welcome to quote it!!
Exactly, it is this mentality thing that is very hard to change. Students need to see each other as the legitimate source of knowledge. They need to see the real value of sharing. So their posts are not just summary or gist of their reading, but different perspectives they can put forward through reading. It’s a sort of developmental stages they have to go through….