I came to embrace online social networking late in life. Apparently this has something to do with being a Generation Xer. We are a moody, cynical bunch. We created the first social networks like MySpace, but Generation Y takes all the credit since Facebook took off in a big way. I don’t Twitter (yet) but I might try Foursquare the new mobile phone application when I become a bit more unpredictable and carefree (ha ha!).
I joined Facebook on a whim about 2 months ago. Then I joined Brazen Careerist to spy on Generation Y and get some tips about surviving in the workplace in the noughties.
Finally I joined She Writes, a social networking site for writers. All along I have felt like an imposter. I know that most people feel like imposters in their professional, and sometimes their private, lives as well.
So head first I went.
What surprises me is how happy I feel being connected to like minded people who I might otherwise have never met. Some of these connections are across vast seas and others across the dry dusty land of Australia. Some are in the next street.
All of them give me inspiration for thinking and writing.
Often a phrase will appear in my writing and I realise that it reflects someone else’s status update or blog post. All my connections tune in and become integrated.
Like a well oiled bubbling productive machine.
And because I currently reside in the land of the brain, it occurs to me that there are some undeniable parallels between social networking and the neural networks that we rely on to think, connect, write and feel.
Neural Networks versus Social Networks
Your brain changes constantly. Even as an adult you generate neurons, or brain cells.
Learning and experience equals physical remodeling in the brain. With experience and new information neurons become connected and fire in synchrony. When 2 neurons are active at the same time their connection strengthens. This forms a neural network.
Experience leads to growth of new neurons, expansion and branching of neurons that are already present and strengthening of connections.
Then each neuron in that connection is more likely to generate a signal that keeps its channels open so information flows.
This is relatively new information in brain land.
In the land of Facebook I see a similar process. Your Facebook page is dynamic and constantly changing. You add new friends, or contacts. Facebook applications pull you all together in amazing ways. Suddenly you are all on the same page. Your network strengthens.
The more you interact with other people, the more contacts you make. The more friends you have the wider your information channels become.
Of course neural and social networks are similar, they are both networks. I love how technology reflects brain processes. Man made versus organic. It’s a beautiful thing.
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