Sometimes PLN’s can hinder development of thoughts and ideas in public discourse. If a user builds their network with little to no diversity, the PLN can hurt the fluidity of thoughts and ideas. Mooney (2020) expresses his thoughts on this through the example of “The Social Dilemma”. “The Social Dilemma” is a docudrama about the negative impact social networking can have on society. Mooney (2020) points out how everyone in the movie is white, and how some developers in the movie cannot seem to understand why their code leaves out some existence of human life. Mooney (2020) talks about the movie “The Social Dilemma” and how the people in the movie cannot figure out why their community has problems valuing all of humanity, even though they are all white. If you build your PLN with more diversity, it will help with the development of ideas and thought that will include all of humanity, enabling you to have a well-rounded look as you learn and grow.

To minimize bias and expand knowledge of others in your PLN, you need to diversify your network. Mooney (2020) talked about how there should be more people at the table saying “we exist” to bring more equity into decision making. When you fill your learning platform with all types of views from all over the world, there’s less chance for you to leave out important information that will end up hurting you. Meikle (2016) says Twitter has 288 million users putting out 500 million tweets a day. Each user on Twitter has open access to follow and be followed by anyone on the platform (Meikle, 2020). This access allows for users to create diverse platforms and fill their feeds with whatever they deem important enough to follow.

What interests you tends to fill your PLN’s. Being aware of this you can follow educational users that will fill your feed with learning material. You can also follow influencers and role models to set goals and remind yourself why you are putting in the effort. Meikle (2016) discusses add algorithms and how your search history can predict what adds pop up on your screen. Lets say you were looking at shoes online, algorithms can pick that up and put shoes in later adds when you’re doing other tasks. This shapes your PLN identity because it’s appearing on your feed and subconsciously influencing you.

The privacy of PLN’s can differ across platforms. If you are using reddit, you may drift towards a super private and anonymous account. This is due to the fact that users may respond to your general posts and ideas differently considering your race or background. Mooney (2020) brings forth examples of this in his life through calls he has received, where people call him back later rewording the previous call after finding out his ethnicity. There are platforms that require more information like linkedIn, where personal information is more necessary to connect, communicate, and collaborate with other users. Giving more information on professional platforms like linkedIn gives you more opportunity to grow your network.

 

References

Mooney, H. (2020) Reporting in a Connected Culture, EDCI 338 – Course YouTube Channel https://youtu.be/elKNQpz0RrI

Meikle, G. (2016). Social Media. New York: Routledge, https://doi-org.ezproxy.library.uvic.ca/10.4324/9781315884172