Sliding Into Apathy

April got away from me. It was the first month since starting this blog that I failed to post anything at all.

Maybe I am suffering some form of social media fatigue. I'm still reading and scouring the web as much as ever but I'm picking and pecking through my Google Reader feeds rather than reading feverishly, and my Twitter presence has dwindled down to virtually nothing. Ironically, I'm still picking up new followers but I'm not sure what I'm offering them. I reckon Dean Groom hit the nail on the head the other day when he wrote:

The dark-side is that social media (for educators) didn’t turn out to be the kind of ‘succeed’ culture expected, but a feed culture, where people either churn out the same old gruel or stare into their smart phone expecting for the unexpected to be fed to them.

I don't need someone pointing me to someone else's stuff and telling me that this is a must-read or an essential. If I have good enough search skills, I can mine the web for my own nuggets of inspiration and my peculiar flights of fancy.

But I do wish that I could recharge my enthusiasm for writing here. After all, this is my space - and thankfully, Edublogs has evolved into a comfortable low cost option for people like myself who don't want to do their own domain / own hosting scenario. More budget ranging than free ranging, however.

Tumblr interests me but what captures my attention isn't niche enough or focussed to make it worthwhile. Most Tumblrs I see are basic digital scrapbooking - which means the unique ones stand out even more. But it seems that the neglect of RSS, the great open concept of pushing information around, is really having an impact. Google Reader winds up soon and I still have to work out  a decent replacement, but one of the best features it used to have was the ability to create an RSS feed of my favourite posts, which I redirected into a widget on the sidebar of this blog. That disappeared, and so did the ability for anyone to see over my virtual shoulder, noting what I thought was worthy of extending out into the network. Corporate siloes are dominating the digital landscape and people seem to be perfectly willing to accept the limitations and standardisations of those places.

Nostalgia hardly seems appropriate for the great Web 2.0 premise of anyone and everyone being an author, a critic or social agitator. But somewhere I'm trying to work out where the joy of playing in this arena has gone for me.

Fire up the XBox - maybe I can still squeeze in a game tonight.

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3 thoughts on “Sliding Into Apathy

  1. johnlarkin

    Graham, do not worry about it. It is really not that important. I posted maybe half a dozen items in 2009 or 2010. The world still turned around and the sun went up and down each day. I was revitalised in 2011.

    Treat yourself to a sabbatical from all of this. Much of what is shared, published in this education sphere is over exaggerated and unrealistic anyway. When I see an exclamation mark at the end of a post or tweet I generally ignore it.

    The audience is actually small when one thinks of the hundreds of thousands of teachers that do not use the Internet to connect with or read the ideas of other educators.

    I personally would steer clear of Tumblr. Too many variables.

    You are under no obligation to “recharge your enthusiasm”. Walk away from this for a while in the full knowledge that it is okay to do. Just give yourself a break. Twelve months. Eighteen months. It will be okay.

    All of this is edublog stuff so tenuous. Even meaningless at times.

    We are not. Focus on yourself, your relatives, your friends and then your career. All of this edublog stuff will still be here, rambling along, when you return, with a bunch of new people to get you thinking probably.

    Cheers, John
    http://www.larkin.net.au

    Reply
    1. Graham

      Post author

      Thanks for your words of wisdom, John. Every thing you write here is so true – and deep down, I know that I should leave this alone for a while. Writing when the moment is right is more important than forcing anything out. Counter-balancing this is the Stephen Downes approach where he advises that regular (almost daily) writing is the only way to get better at this most enjoyable (when done right) of intellectual crafts. Thanks for dropping by.

      Reply

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