Redefining online community Part 4: The wide and deep world of blogs and podcasts

It’s a big, big world and there’s something for everyone.
We live in the information age, which the Cambridge dictionary defines as “the present time, in which large amounts of information are available because of developments in computer technology.” In this age, the ability to shape opinions from peer to peer has grown vital. Two popular and powerful vehicles for the flow of that information that I personally tune into are blogs and podcasts, and in this post I’m going to explore how we might be affected by both. 

Chances are pretty good that somebody’s doing a blog or podcast about everything and anything you might be interested in, and services like Spotify and Podbean make it really easy to find a plethora of information anytime. Looking for some solid ideas about how to handle home and family issues in today’s chaotic world?  Check out Becky Mansfield’s Your Modern Family blog site. Want to learn about how the actions of humans could inadvertently lead to the end of civilization and what we can each do to prevent it? Explore it with Josh in The End of The World with Josh Clark. Maybe you’re pondering what it means to be human and who we will be to each other in community as things evolve – in which case you might enjoy checking out the Peabody-award winning On Being podcast by Krista Tippett or the excellent Sam Harris podcast Making Sense. In the big, big online world I honestly find that the challenge isn’t to FIND information about virtually anything – it’s to sort through everything that’s out there to get to the stuff that’s most relevant and helpful to what I’m exploring.

​Breadth and depth.
Looking to explore a really broad set of related topics? Pick your subject and go! With a quick online search you’ll find blogs and podcasts that take you to the most remote corners of whatever you’re interested in. A good example is the earlier-mentioned Your Modern Family blog site, where Becky Mansfield – a mother, a wife, an elementary-school teacher, and a child-development therapist - covers family-related topics ranging from marriage, parenting and kids activities to saving money and preparing healthy meals for your family. On sites like hers, you benefit from the knowledge, experience, opinions, and resource-base of a real person who has personally walked a path similar to your own – and who isn’t trying to convince you to buy something while you’re there.

Want to go really deep on something and learn from experts in the field? The information age blesses us with access to the most amazing people from almost any discipline you can think of.  As a social entrepreneur building something vastly different from anything I’ve seen out there, I’m learning a ton from the How I Built This podcast by Guy Raz. He does in-depth, insightful interviews with other builders who created something amazing, and then chose to share their amazing stories for the benefit of people just like me. I particularly got into his January 2022 interview with Andy Puddicombe and Rich Pierson, in which a Buddhist monk and a man burnt out from a high-powered job at a London ad agency tell how they collaborated to create Headspace - a guided meditation app that now has users in 190 countries and annual revenue over $100 million. Another really good interview with a thought leader that got me thinking in a whole different way is Krista Tippett’s February 2022 interview with visionary Trabian Shorters about the concept of asset framing. As a community builder, the idea of defining and engaging the people I’m trying to serve in terms of the assets they bring to the table rather than their deficiencies is so important - and yet so simple. Seriously, how else would I possibly get insights from people like Andy, Rich, and Trabian?

​Swimming in the wide, deep ocean.
In my mind, the idea of navigating the near-infinite breadth and seemingly limitless depth of the world of blog sites and podcasts conjures a vision of getting dropped into the middle of a vast ocean. Can it be invigorating and exciting? For sure! Is it easy and completely safe? Ehhhh … maybe not so much.
 
It’s certainly easy to find general information in this wide and deep ocean, but finding the specific, useful, high-quality info you seek can be a challenge. Whether you’re using Google, Bing, Safari, or DuckDuckGo, the results of any basic search will return more information than you can possibly use and much of it won’t be useful at all. Information overload is a real thing! Looking in the right places, knowing the right search terms to use, and effective use of filtering are all important tools to use to most easily get to the exact information you need. 

While there aren’t any literal sharks swimming around in this ocean of information, there are certainly metaphorical predators to keep an eye out for. While you’re busily searching and surfing the internet, there are often dark shadows emerging from the depths to check you out as possible prey as well. For one, nefarious characters like phishers, scammers, or hackers will try to capture personal information about you and use it in ways you don’t want them to. My father was the victim of identity theft from online activity and it literally took him years to recover. Another facet of online safety is risk to your personal mental and emotional health from harmful or even toxic responses to anything you post about yourself. The online world allows for a level of anonymity that lets some people behave without fear of accountability, and as such, people will say rude, offensive, and hurtful things online that they’d never say in person. On a less-obvious level, many of the big tech companies that provide these online tools and applications are tracking all of your online actions and using that data to make money off of you – whether they sell you something or simply sell your personal data to someone else to be used in any way they wish.

​Yes, the information age has presented a glorious amount of information to us all – and it’s on each of us to protect ourselves in this figurative ocean and use the tools available to us wisely and efficiently. I close today with a suggestion to choose your online information source carefully. (You’ll want to check out the soon-to-be-released Eos Community Connections Portal, brought to you by an established non-profit company that guarantees it won’t sell your data or allow advertisers to prey on you. The information you’ll find in it is on topic and easy to filter. Only members that have accepted the Good Human Code Of Conduct(™) can post information in Eos, and Eos’ fair and transparent content moderation processes will shield you from mistreatment at the hands of other members.  

Coming up next: Online discussion forums.