Online Communities
Online communities have existed for decades. They have evolved over time and are still evolving. Some of these online communities exist for social interaction, others for business. Colleges have online e-learning communities. And more than ever before K-12 have online e-learning communities. Additionally, there are online business communities. Also, there are communities for the military and veterans & their families. What is considered an online community may vary based on interpretation. Some online communities may be on one specific platform. Others may occupy multiple platforms. Yet others can transcend from online to the physical world and vice versa. The key to online communities is that there is an interaction (beyond the trivial) and that it utilizes a computer network.
While online communities are social due to their interactivity, some are personal while others are more professional. The Professional platform LinkedIn is a service that has online communities, each with its own goals. The platform as a whole could be considered an online community, with online communities with it. Facebook on the other hand is designed to be a personal online community, with other personal and professional online communities within it.
The beginning of online communities began shortly after the development of computers. A predecessor to the modern internet was ARPANET developed in 1971. Email and listservers were developed shortly after (Abras, n.d.). These early interactions were the beginning of online communities. In the late 1970s, Bulletin Board Systems (BBSs) were developed (BBS History, n.d.). While ARPANET was a somewhat exclusive system, BSSs were available to anyone with a computer, a modem, and a phone line. Phone lines were fairly common by the late 1970s, but computers and modems were not. So, the online communities were fairly personal. In the 1980s with personal computers becoming more popular, so did BBSs. in the late 1980s ARPANET migrated to NSFNET (“NSF and the birth of the internet - special report,” 2009). This was the beginning of the internet. By the early 1990s, the internet as we know it today took shape. Online services like America Online (AOL), CompuServe, and Prodigy began offering internet services to their subscribers. One of these subscribers was author John Green. In his book “The Anthropocene Reviewed” he wrote about being a moderator for an online community on CompuServe (Green, 2021).
At the turn of the millennium, the internet became mainstream. With services like AOL offering full internet access and new cable modems (Fellows & Jones, 2001) offering access to the internet 24/7, there were few barriers for people in the United States to get on the internet. It was not just the US but many countries were connected to the internet. Many early popular websites were search engines or e-commerce sites. But soon services like LiveJournal (How did LiveJournal get started? Who runs it now?, n.d.) and MySpace (Cashmore, 2006) emerged and the beginning of social media had begun. Then came micro-blogging services like Twitter (Carlson, 2011).
There is no one format for online communities. While certain platforms may foster a certain type of online community, no one platform is truly dominant. Some may have more users or more communities, but overall today there is a fairly broad group of platforms. An online community could develop from a group on Facebook. These groups revolve around a certain interest. The scope and topic of the group is up to the group's creator. Some of these creators keep a strict standard of what could be discussed and who could join. They could use administrators and moderators to assist them. Other groups have a laissez-faire attitude. But a Facebook group does not necessarily make an online community. Some online communities span several different platforms and may have their own website(s). One such online community calls itself Nerdfighteria. This community was started on YouTube by author John Green and his brother Hank (William) Green. What started as a project of them making daily YouTube videos has spread far beyond YouTube. An online community could be as simple as six thousand members in a local chicken keeping group (Facebook, n.d.). Some of these online communities are rooted in the physical world. They could be an extension of an existing physical community, or the online community could spill over to the physical world.
Another online community group is the health care online communities. Many of these are rooted in healthcare providers' networks. These health care providers can offer forums for patients to interact. Because of patient privacy laws, these medical provider communities could be highly restrictive and moderated. There are online healthcare communities that have been set up by a group of people independent of a specific medical provider.
For the financial online communities there is cryptocurrency which is innovation in regards to currency. The cryptocurrency bitcoin started as a niche community and was barely known outside of it. In recent years cryptocurrency is integrating into traditional financial institutions and the trading market. Many people believe that cryptocurrency is the future of currency and are starting to invest in this area. With cryptocurrency, the community members process the transactions. Many times these are the crypto miners. Cryptocurrency online communities are more than just those that process the transactions (Kim et al., 2017). There are cryptocurrency communities created for users to interact, learn and follow the trading market of cryptocurrencies and its coins. This community is composed of big investors known as big whales and small investors and includes people from all over the world who transfer and exchange their currencies for cryptocurrency. Proponents of cryptocurrency argue that it frees the financial market from the interference of nations. While detractors of cryptocurrency argue that without the regulation and monitoring of nations cryptocurrency will continue to be too volatile to be used as a standard of exchange and that it will be relegated to criminal enterprises.
Online communities have been created as a virtual or second life for people. It mimics many aspects of one’s real life. The main purpose of an online community is to communicate with others by decreasing distance between people all across the globe, where everyone could communicate with each other no matter how far or what the time zone is. People started using online communities so much that it expanded to provide a community shopping experience, credit card transactions, money transfers, and even item exchanges within an online community. It is now not only for communication but for business.
Inside some online communities, there are creators and influencers. A creator is someone who makes content on the internet, generally for public consumption. The term creator is most often used on video platforms like Youtube but can exist on other platforms. Online communities can grow around a creator or a group of creators. Again, like other online communities, these can span across multiple platforms. A more exclusive platform that creators sometimes use is Patreon (Patreon, n.d.). This is a fundraising platform that allows creators (or anyone) to raise money to support their content. Platforms like Patreon have allowed creators to dedicate more time to their content and for some, it is allowed them to do it full time.
The term influencer (Guest Blogger, 2021) is harder to define than creators. Once a user on a social media platform has a large number of subscribers, followers, or friends they may describe themselves as an influencer. The idea is that the user can influence their audience. Many times they use this “influence” to market products. Others may use this new found “power” to try to demand products to review. An influencer could be a creator, but that is not a necessity.
No matter the platform(s) or format(s) of an online community there are benefits and detriments to online communities. Online communities by their nature are social, but social media is a part of online communities. The social aspect of online communities many find enjoyable. They enjoy interacting with other people around the world. For some, this could fill a void that they can not find with interactions in the physical world. During the restrictions of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, the draw to online communities increased. People could not have physical interactions so they were left with online interactions. Some individuals have unmet needs that online communities help fulfill (Sharma & De Choudhury, 2018). A positive online community could assist someone with mental health needs and concerns. The sense of belonging can be a powerful feeling to many. There are some that find psychological and social enjoyment in participating in online brand communities (Hsieh et al., 2022). One of these brands is Legos (Community, n.d.). While there is an ‘official’ community on the Lego website. There are online Lego communities that are not controlled by Lego (Best online community for Lego Builders?, n.d.).
Online communities are useful for business networking. These online business communities can help find professionals in similar and related fields. Like any online community, they could be broad or geographically narrow. There could be an online community for a building trade in a specific state. This community could be a valuable resource on navigating licensing and permit requirements as well as the stated building code. Some of these online business communities could be based on a trade association or they could be completely independent.
Some online communities come about not so much by choice but by necessity. The rapid increase in the number of e-learning communities that have popped up in the last couple of years, for example (p). Many of these are fairly rigid e-learning platforms, but some have expanded beyond that. Students and parents have formed their own groups within these communities. They may use Zoom, Facebook, Twitter, or email to participate in these online communities. While these online communities do have their disgruntled members and could devolve into anarchy, most benefit the students in their studies and offer a needed outlet and break from learning.
Online communities can be comforting to some people with disabilities (both physical and mental). They may feel uncomfortable interacting or unable to interact in physical communities. These communities could be developed as a support system for them or they could be other types of communities. The key is that they are able to find a positive and safe environment. And this is not always the case.
There are several online veteran communities. These communities can be helpful for disabled veterans trying to navigate the bureaucracy of the Veterans Administration, or just looking for people with similar experiences. There are online communities for veterans and military family members.
Just as a positive online community could have positive effects on a person's social and psychological well being, a negative or toxic online community could have devastating effects on a person's social and psychological well being. These online communities could foster activities like cyberbullying. These communities could be racist, sexist, or both. The interactions within these communities could be aggressive and argumentative. A person with low self esteem could have a hard time in an online community like this. The sense of belonging could prevent them from leaving the online community. The more desperately they want to belong to these toxic online communities the worse their psychological well being will become. The psychological harm they face in online communities could lead them to harming themselves (van Geel et al., 2014). Younger people tend to have a harder time emotionally and psychologically to negative online communities, but people of all ages can have detrimental effects from these online communities. The harm that can be inflicted does not need to be self inflicted. Something else that could happen in an online community is cyberstalking (Alexy et al., 2005). This could be someone tracking a person's online footprint to locate them in the physical world. Once they are found in the physical world they could be beaten, robbed, raped, or murdered.
People need to be aware of their privacy (or lack of privacy) when interacting in an online community. Some communities allow for a person to use an alias, while some insist that you use your real name. Care needs to be taken with what information is shared in an online community. People could use details in pictures, comments made, or frequented locations to find out where someone lives, goes to school, or works. Sometimes it is as easy as putting in the person's name and area where they think they live into a search engine to get this information. Additionally, an employer could be monitoring activity in online communities. They could find out that the day you called in sick, you were really at a concert. Or that you are job hunting. If a person is working multiple jobs the employers may be able to find that out if they add either or both jobs to their LinkedIn profile (Feintzeig, 2021).
In an e-learning environment students are forced to transition from a traditional learning environment. When students are forced from a traditional learning environment into an e-learning environment, students and parents could face great obstacles (Lynch, 2020). Those with learning disabilities can have trouble adapting to the new online e-learning community. While some students can thrive in an e-learning community, many of those that were thrust into them in 2020 had a difficult time with it. Younger students seem to have a more difficult time than teenagers and adults. Additionally, teachers were also thrown into these communities with no planning or warning. They needed to know how to adapt their lesson plans to a virtual environment. Being forced into online communities can have psychological effects. We still don’t know what social and psychological effects there will be on teachers, students, and parents from it. And it may be hard to fully explore that in the haze of the pandemic.
Online communities continue to evolve. Soon, as announced by Facebook, the metaverse is coming to “life” (Meta, 2021) and bringing online communities to a whole other level which is full 3-dimensional interaction. Besides people just clicking to chat which evolved into calls and video calling, now everyone will be able to move and transpose their body movements onto others in real time. A hug for example will be able to be given to someone across the globe through machines used by both people. Will the future of online communities involve wearing a VR headset? Will it be like so many sci-fi shows and involve holograms? Will geographic specific online communities offer services like grocery or fast food pickup, circumventing services like Grubhub and Instacart? The future of online communities will evolve based on several factors. The first factor is what the technology could provide. The next factor will be the sense and needs of the communities themselves. The third factor is if someone could figure out how to make money and turn it into a business model.
Online communities have evolved over the decades, and continue to evolve. As technology grows, so do the possibilities for online communities. While new platforms will inevitably create new online communities, as stated earlier online communities do not need to be bound to a platform. The existing online communities will expand into or move to these new platforms. I do not believe the essence of these communities will change with the new platforms and technology they will just evolve.
The benefits will continue and may even improve. Technologies and platforms may provide better services for those with disabilities for example. While still providing the social benefit of belonging that they do today; the psychological joy that community members experience may increase as new ways of interacting emerge.
The detriments will not disappear. Technology does not change human nature. There will be those that will try to demean and bully others. Criminals will continue to use technology for any gain they can. And, privacy will be just as important as it is today, if not more so. Online communities can be wonderful places to interact with others. But, just like any community one needs to be aware of their surroundings, and know not to trust everyone.
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