Whatever happened to …

… social reading?

It was one of the big things that sold me on Social Media. First, you have to get a bunch of friends/connections and then you read what they’re sharing. Once you feel comfortable, you start to share the things that educate you and inspire you.

An interesting take on it and the concept of online libraries can be found here.

Publishers make it so easy with sharing buttons on articles (like they are here on doug .. off the record) and all that you have to do is read the article, find it interesting or inspiring, and share it with the hope that others will find it equally engaging and/or start a conversation with you about the content.

I longed to be part of a group that was making themselves smarter that way and I like to think that I eventually did. I also contributed back to the shared knowledge. I finally got frustrated looking for that little share button and installed Shareaholic and AddtoAny in my browsers so that I was in control of the sharing instead of looking for the buttons that are in so many different places. My place to share is typically on Twitter and Facebook.

I still do this. From roughly 5am to 6am, I’m alone and do some quiet reading. My goto application for discovering interesting content is Flipboard.

A portion of my Flipboard categories

We used to have a CIESC group (Computers in Education School Contacts) and I’d share there on our private system. It led to a lot of learning and requests for workshops.

Sadly though, that sharing community that I felt part of is no longer working in the same way. Most often, interesting articles just get a “Like” or people just keep scrolling. Or, the worst, sometimes there’s something controversial and instead of engaging, rage ensues.

It’s kind of sad to see the dropoff but I’m still engaged. I like to think that it keeps me going and provides inspiration for blog posts of my own. I never want to stop learning.

For your Sunday morning …

• do you engage in social reading from me or others?
• if you find something interesting to you reshare it or comment on it?
• if your network dried up tomorrow, would you continue?
• do you have a favourite application that you use for sharing or do you use the tools that are provided on the resource?
• how do you research and find new things to learn?
• the article I shared above comes from 2011. Is that an indication that the notion of social reading is dead – if so, what has replaced it?

I’d be most interested in your thoughts. Please share them in the comments below.

Whatever happened to …” is a regular Sunday morning post around here. You can check them all out here.