The Filter Bubble Eli Pariser reveals is alarming for many reasons. Among them is the redundancy of people one connects with through Social Media. If you only meet people who know people you already know, the world just keeps getting smaller and smaller instead of bigger.
When thinking about who knows about the importance of openness to new peer relationships and how to encourage them, it occured to me that teachers of young kids are faced with this challenge every day. Here's a paper that shares some of insights from the teachers of teachers.
The problems associated with an environment that doesn't encourage new peer relationships include aggressive behavior, poor performance, and depression. For example, an classroom with tight cliques would make it difficult for a new student to form peer relationships.
This all sounds very familiar to problems in society today and reminds us that a community isn't a bunch of people networked around one individual. That's a clique. A community is when people network around a purpose that's bigger than any one individual.
The paper suggests a purpose which could galvanize a sense of community when recommending ways to encouraging kids to experiment with new relationships - activities which promote companionships, such as "literature, sports, games, and music."
When you think about it, entertainment has been an effective tool to breakthrough historic "Bubble Filters." For example, Norman Lear probably did as much or more than the Civil Rights Movement to erode bigotry in the United States with the popular primetime show, "All in the Family."
