Digital Learners: Real and Virtual Jewish Life in a Facebook World
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Guest: David Bryfman, Director, New Center for Collaborative Leadership and Teen Engagement, The Jewish Education Project, NY How do we understand the world in which our students are now living? What are implications for our educational organizations and for building Jewish community? The lines between what is real and what is virtual are increasingly being blurred. Social media, cyber communities, virtual worlds continue to grow and increasingly we are witnessing Jewish life thriving in forums like these. What impact is the cyberworld having on Jewish identity and the communities in which we exist? How are organizations adapting to the changing nature of what it means to connect, affiliate and belong in the 21st century? These are some of the most critical issues facing the Jewish people and Jewish institutions today. While this session wont provide all of the answers it will raise many of the important questions that you need to be asking in order to succeed as a Jewish organization in a Facebook world.
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Digital Learners: Real and Virtual Jewish Life in a Facebook World
- 1. Digital Learners: Real and Virtual Jewish Life in a Facebook World David Bryfman @bryfy www.bryfy.net #jed21 [email_address]
- 6. How do we understand Jewish identity? Zehut Yehudit by Rabbi Jan Katzew When Eliezer Ben Yehuda coined the Hebrew word for 'identity' he chose zehut. Rooted in the word zeh (this), zehut means "thisness". Zehut Yehudit therefore refers to that which makes a Jew a Jew, the particular knowledge and experience that result in the unique combination of a Jewish self, a Jewish life.
- 7. Understanding Identity Self Family Friends Country World Jewish
- 8. Aretz (land) Torah (law/ethics/values) Am (People)
- 9. Soccer Camp Shule Friends Family Crowd Clique On-Line Mother Band School Boyfriend Multiple Identities
- 12. Expression of Self Who is the self that I want to portray on Facebook? How is this different to the self that I portray in other spheres of my life? Applications Causes Photos Age Name Photos
- 14. Do you have a Facebook Profile?
- 16. The You in YouTube
- 17. Is it a trend? “ For teens, social media is not technology, it ’ s just life ” This is our page views graph. We're now at 30 billion page views monthly. According to comScore, we are the 6th most trafficked US site, and we account for 1% of all time spent on the internet. This is our overall growth graph. You can see us moving from 7.5 million users last July to almost 18 million users now. Over half of our users log in daily.
- 19. Wake Up Call #1
- 22. Wake Up Call #2 Second Life
- 25. Post-script to Social Media
- 33. David Bryfman @bryfy www.bryfy.net #jed21 [email_address]
Editor's Notes
- First a big welcome to all of you for joining us today and secondly a big thank you to my friends and colleagues – Lisa and Caren at Darim Online – for coordinating this webinar and helping me over the years to get many of my thoughts in order on the topic that I am about to present on today. In some ways parts of my biography are important to today’s webinar – as they set the scene for how I got involved in this line of thinking. First the personal narrative – as someone who has lived in 6 cities over the last decade or so I have built many friendships, relationships and simply met a whole lot of people. First there was my address book, then the rolodex, the Outlook contacts on the Palm Pilot and then before I knew it there was Facebook, Linked In and Twitter. By design of these products, what started as a way of organizing myself however soon became a way of representing myself. The second piece of this infatuation of mine with cyberspace was through my research. My dissertation research at NYU focused on adolescent identity development of Jewish teens at summer camp, youth group and in a day school. I was interested in the role of the peer group in the identity development of these teens and before I knew it I was drawn to the fact that a large amount of these relationships were being formed and developed online and not in one of the physical settings that I was observing. And so began my journey….
- The fact that you’re on a webinar might mean that you yourself hold no fears about cyberspace – although from my experience it might also be the very reason that many of you are on this webinar. So let’s start by getting all of our fears out there. Chat Question: When it comes to cyberspace , what are some of the things that you or your constituents are most scared of?
- Now here’s where I want to be very careful and say that all of these fears are very real. But I also want to suggest that there are many things in the word that we are scared of but we do anyway. Let me take the shopping mall for example. I speak to many parents of teenagers and they tell me that they are scared of allowing their teens to go to the shopping mall because so many things can go wrong. They also know that they cant ban their kids from going there – if they do only one thing is certain – that their kids will find a way to go there without their parent’s knowledge. So what do the parents do – they set up parameters to make the child’s experience at the shopping mall as safe as possible: Send them with a cell phone Drop them off and pick them up Know the names of the people that they are going with Have a curfew Now none of those things in and of themselves make for a totally safe experience – but combined they do mitigate the prospects of bad things happening. In many ways the same goes for cyberspace – first we must know the dangers and second we must then develop ways to make its usage as safe as possible – because one thing is for certain – if we ban it (either as parents or as educators) then our learners are going to use it anyway : HANG ON a SEC – THEY ALREADY ARE!!!
- Let’s start by suggesting that to understand our learners is to understand people. This might seem like an obvious statement but if we unpack it for a second it is actually more complex than it first appears. In fact it is even center cultural to many educational settings that we know of. In some instructions of learning – to understand our learners is to acknowledge that they are empty vessels for whom our task as educators is to fill them with all of the information that they need to know. This depositing of knowledge treats our learners as passive recipients. Our learners however are anything but passive, and they know and contribute to their own learning experiences more than many educators often care to acknowledge. This philosophical understanding of the learner as an active being, who discovers, learns and grows primarily through their own experiences is critical to understanding the role of cyberspace in identity development. The very active way in which people create their cyber identities - means that their own distinction between their real lives and their virtual lives is at best blurry and at in most cases just a further extension or another dimension of their very real self.
- So what is this thing called identity? Identity is... the fact of being of who a person is. And how we know about identity is to look at the characteristics that determine this. We often talk about identity as sameness and look to factors of consistency over time and space. It isn’t just personality - but it is the essence of a person – who they really are and how they really represent themselves. Identity isn't what organizations you belong to or even what behaviors you partake in. I.e. Jewish identity isn't what JCC you belong to, how often you light shabbat candles or even if you marry another Jew - however these are some exhibited manifestations of how identity is observed or measured. But let's be clear the manifestation of identity is a combination of a person's thinking (cognitive), values/attitudes (affective) and actions (behaviors) What identity is - is the combination way a person: A. A person presents themselves and B. The ways in which a person is perceived by others This webinar is not going to be a presentation on how we measure identity in a cyber world – which by the way is a fascinating and emerging field of social science research – but it will be an exploration of some of the things that we can learn about Jews today from the ways in which they represent themselves in cyber space. abstruse.
- And what is Jewish identity? Rabbi Jan Katzew writes: When Eliezer Ben Yehuda coined the Hebrew word for 'identity' he chose zehut. Rooted in the word zeh (this), zehut means "thisness". Zehut Yehudit therefore refers to that which makes a Jew a Jew, the particular knowledge and experience that result in the unique combination of a Jewish self, a Jewish life. I think that this is very helpful when we consider that which makes a Jew in cyber world. It is more than the types of Jewish identity – these are categories which help us to look at the big picture. But when it comes to identity of individuals we need to look beyond the statistics and figuratively into the t-shirts, tattoos and onesies of our people.
- Here is one traditional way in which many of us may have looked at our own Jewish identities. It is a classic Jewish youth group and summer camp program. What are the various influences in our lives that effect who we are in the different concentric circles – of self, family, friends, Jewish world, country and world.
- Here is another activity that many of us might be familiar with. Based on Rav Kook’s triangle of Jewish identity where do we see ourselves according to the triangle representing Toraht Israel, Am Israel and Aretz Israel
- One of the more recent understandings of identities has been that people actually don’ t have a single identity and that their entire self is built up of many different identities. We might know this to be true for ourselves – The self that I present at work is very different to the one I present at home, in the gym, at work etc. Does this mean that I have multiple identities? Does it mean that I have one identity that is malleable depending on which context I present myself in? Although worthy of consideration these are not necessarily questions that we can discuss here – except to note that however you understand this concept that the cyber/on-line identity is now another venue in which identity can and is being represented.
- We also need to understand that identity is not static – in fact it is constantly evolving. Many things can trigger changes in one’s identity – major lifecycle events, random moments, or even global events. Many people claim that they changed dramatically after 9-11 for example. And therefore the argument could be made that we are actually not looking at identity as a construct but at people’s journeys – not so much interested in who they think they are – but actually more concerned with how they got there and where they are going.
- So let’s have a look at a few examples of cyber space to better understand what we are talking about. This is me on Facebook (its actually only one of me on Facebook – like some of you I imagine you might have more than one profile. So what is it that this profile can tell you about me…..?
- There are photos so you can see what I look like and what I want you to see about my life. You cant quite see it – but that’s me cyber surfing – that’ s what happens when you turn up late to white water rafting – they throw you behind the boat with a rope and a pair of flippers and tell you to hang on for dear life. There is my name – that’ s a pretty important part of identity. There’s my age There are some of the causes that I believe in – or the causes that I want you to think I believe in And some of the applications that make my cyber life more productive, enjoyable and also distracting. Now of course fan pages and groups show you exactly what types of people I choose to associate with.
- Let’s take these three profiles of people that I found on Facebook and a bit of information about each of them: The questions that I would be asking all of you to consider when you are looking at people’s profiles are: What do these issues tell us about: These individuals and The generation/or cohort of people that the represent?
- Let’s have a bit of a reality check for a second. Take a few minutes to think about this and maybe even bring up a screen of your Facebook profile if you can do so without closing down this webinar. Chat Question: Do you have a Facebook profile? If so, what is one thing that people might learn about you from your Facebook profile that they might not know if they met you in a real life setting? If you’re willing to do so – do you mind sharing some thoughts about this in the chat box.?
- The same questions can of course be asked on Twitter – although perhaps more difficult to find – the combination of 140 character messages, the hashtags people follow and perhaps most importantly seeing who people follow and who follows them combine to tell us quite a lot about individuals.
- Then of course there is YouTube – a really dominant product in the lives of many people today. What are people watching? What are people placing on YouTube? Who is viewing what videos and what are the saying about them? All of these are good indicators of who people are in todays world.
- Is this a trend? We are actually way beyond discussing whether these products are fads. They are here and they are here to stay. In a few years time it might not be called Facebook or Twitter but one thing is for certain – the world of social media and cyberspace is definitely not going backwards.
- By the numbers – well take a look for yourself and then try and work out for constituents where they are most active – but for now at least start with Facebook – it is almost ubiquitous in the Jewish world today.
- I want to share a couple of wake up calls that I have had in recent years that make life slightly more complicated. I heard a rumor that lots of kids like playing video games – one study suggests that it is high as 95% of all kids play some type of online game. Cool I thought to myself as I remember sitting at home playing Pong, and Pac Man and later mini-Olympic on my Commodore 64. And images of all of these obese kids never leaving their sofas, eating copious amounts of chips and drinking soda and never talking to another human being in an intelligent way because all they could do was grunt as they killed some out of space creature.
- Hmmmmm – wrong! Online games today are not only extremely interactive and social but they are developing skills in players that are already becoming increasingly more and more valuable in society today. Collaboration Cooperation design principles Strategic thinking Problem solving Analytic skills Creativity and imagination These are not just the assets used by video game marketing people – but these are some of the qualities that universities are actively seeking out and the workforce is increasingly employing.
- Gaming also tells us a lot about the identities of the people who are playing these games. Speak to people about the strategies that they use in various games – when they choose to win and when they choose to share. As people about what they feel when they play these games. I used to think that the question that game designers were asking was about what games would be most successful or attractive for consumers. I soon discovered that the key question that they were asking was what type of emotions and affect could games elicit from their potential players – it was less about the experience of the game and more about the experience of the individual users.
- I then had a wake up call in Second Life – as if my first life wasn’ t confusing enough. Second Life is a virtual word with over one million active users. I don’ t want to go in to too much detail here but just to say that people play out their lives in second life with all of the attributes that they would incorporate in their real lives. There are human interactions, there are causes that people associate with, their is active learning being conducted by many of the elite universities in the world. Have a look at the avatars that people choose for themselves – the clothes they choose to wear and the body image they choose to represent themselves.
- Most staggering to me however was when I learned about the economy of Second Life. Yes people use real money to purchase Second Life currency and then invest and buy in products that they value in this Second life reality. I recently came across horse auctions in Second Life where people were buying horses that they could ride and add to their properties. What? Who would spend real money buying a virtual horse in a virtual world? So successful was this auctioning process that the designers of this horse auction were able to donate close to $100,000 – that’s $100,000 real dollars, to victims of the earthquake in Japan.
- Jewishly there is also quite a bit going on in Second Life. There is learning, there are synagogue services, there are candle lighting services, there are virtual tours of Israel. A year or so ago I even attended an interfaith dialogue in Second Life, attended by Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus and members of the Bahai faith - where the question being asked was whether or not God recognized a mitzvah (a commandment) that was performed in a virtual world?
- It isn’t only in life that people are presenting themselves in a virtual world. Increasingly we are seeing how people are being remembered in their deaths throughout cyberspace. A 9-11 memorial and a Virginia Tech memorial in Second Life. Facebook even has a protocol of how to memorialize friends who have passed away. And in the bottom right corner we see a screen shot of the memorial service for Debbie Friedman, the Jewish song writer and performer who passed away in January of this year, with people’s real time comments and prayers accompanying the service.
- Virtual Ethnography is an emerging field today. It is one way that people are using to better understand different populations. Chat Question: Can you give other examples where some aspect about cyber space has informed you about some of your constituents? Blogs, texts, IM’s
- So what are some of the general things that cyber world can tell us about our learners of the 21 st century? Our learners are smart Our learners are active Our learners are producers and not just consumers Our learners can choose what they value Our learners can be many identities all the time
- And what are some of the messages that we as educators need to take away from this now that we know some of this: Many of our us are digital immigrants and not natives We need to be humble - we don ’ t have/can ’ t have all the answers We need to deal with the whole learner We are having many of the same identity struggles To be a life long learner isn ’ t a luxury
- For our institutions today, the many questions raised today pose one of the greatest challenges they have faced in several decades. A few months ago I was reading the NY Times online. After reading a few articles the following screen shot popped up on my screen. And now I have a decision to make. Do I want to pay $4.99 a month to access the NY Times online? Do I value the content of NY Times online enough to pay for it?
- Or the YMCA who no longer suggests that you need to be a member – although that’ s what they are ultimately after – their tag lines speak of everyone being part of the YMCA community.
- Now I need to use cyberspace to better understand who my constituents are: Like Amazon, or Facebook or Yelp who all utilize the collective wisdom of the masses to better figure out how they can cater to me.
- So where does all of this leave us? The Facebook revolution is here. The question, at least for today is how do we begin to understand the Jewish identity of the 21 st century in light of the different ways people are presenting themselves in this ne and continually evolving cyber space? To ignore the cyber word in understanding our people – is to ignore who our people really are. For many of them there is no distinction between their so called real worlds and their so called virtual worlds – what occurs online is often just another facet or dimension of who these people really are.