Bill Ferriter, complimenting me most graciously, framed his most recent post around some comments on Twitter I left on his blog (and he also commented here). Rebuttal follows.

First of all, let’s clear up our terms. When we say “connection” between people, I think it’s probably not accurate to represent that as solely “deep” connection. Surely I can agree with you that Twitter ain’t for discussing Schopenhauer. So let’s call what we’re talking about “authentic connection”: that is, something beyond merely utilitarian, but not necessarily soulmates meeting. :) I think I might argue, however, that even narrowing our terms in this way, Twitter and other Web 2.0 tools are still more limited than they are being portrayed.

Sure, Twitter can work wonders. But I wonder if it works only if you have a strong social sensibility (not to mention language abilities) already present.

For example, I find it fascinating that despite agreeing that Twitter is not for deep connection, the metaphor you have chosen to discuss Twitter is FAMILY– one of the deepest connections there is. Why is that? I would wager that it’s because you already feel connected to people there. You spoke in deservedly glowing terms of Clay’s blog, for example, which you had started to read long before getting on Twitter. You also started peopling your Twitterverse with TLN folks you already knew– as I did I, through Linda at my school.

So (speaking of metaphors) Twitter as a”gateway” may be a misleading metaphor. It implies that Twitter leads us to authentic connection. I wonder if Twitter may be better seen as a tollbooth. It only lets you onto the road if you already have the fare. In this case, the fare would be having the capacity for authentic connection in the first place.

This might go a ways towards explaining why my colleague Joe feels that Twitter is redundant in his life. He’s got the fare already– that is, a deep, admirable capacity for authentic connection– so he has the ability to pick and choose which Web tollbooths are useful for him. In contrast, you’ve gone through the Twitter tollbooth– but again, like Joe, you’ve got the fare, and so you can make the tollbooth work for you. You are a talented communicator, a thoughtful and educated person, and obviously loving (and loved) adult. Your foundations are firmly in place.

So, to bring it back to ground zero, my question seems to be evolving as this: is Web 2.0 equally useful for our students, who are mainly still in the thick of developing their foundations? Do they have the fare?

Here’s another way to put it. For us lucky adult educators, who came of age and learned to connect with others far before the Net existed, Twitter (and other Web 2.0 techs) are indeed just tools. But I wonder if for students, who increasingly do not have this cross-century perspective, these tools have the danger of becoming totalitarians.

On Twitter the other day you mentioned Wes Fryer’s post on false privacy. Although I’m branching out from just the Twitterverse here, I think this is a pivotal example of what might go wrong with an insufficiently critical Web 2.0 approach. Where would such a fundamental misinterpretation of the nature of the Internet come from in our students? I would argue that it springs from the nature of the Internet itself. Without a concerted effort to the contrary, we are intuitively convinced that on the Net we are acting in private– alone. This has been fairly well documented among researchers, and I myself have succumbed dramatically to this falsehood at times.

But perhaps the idea is so pervasive because it isn’t actually a falsehood at all. Aren’t we actually alone on the Net, no matter how many followers we have on Twitter?

You’ll see that I’m going at this differently than Michael Bugeja at the Economist debate. He’s concerned that Web 2.0 is fundamentally selfish in nature. I’m not interested in Bugeja’s moral condemnation here. But I do have concern about a way of being via Web 2.0 that is vastly different than anything else we’ve experienced before. I can sum up this new way of being by asking this: does a webcam count for a kiss, as your niece beautifully shows us? (My son is three too, by the way.)

So can we really teach kids to authentically connect through a medium which causes us to conceive of ourselves fundamentally as alone? Isn’t this an inescapable contradiction in terms?

And what will happen, therefore, if we– and they– continue to further integrate our human communication with that of Web 2.0?

You’ll note that I’m not suggesting that our students will give up all face to face interaction and transmogrify into cyborgs, a straw man argument if I ever heard one. And I’m no Luddite, as this very blog attests. :)

What I am suggesting is that even a little of the Net, tossed into the bubbling pot of our still-cooking kids, seems to be like cayenne– or mercury. Without substantial reflection, perspective, maturity and context, it can go a very, very long way– and in a way that I am coming to believe IS NOT ANALOGOUS to our experience of the Net as cross-century adults. (Bill, I have actually heard students say “LOL”– instead of laughing.)

But Bill, you’ve clearly had more experience with the intersection of Web 2.0 tools and the young developing minds in a classroom. Do you– or anyone reading this– see some, or all, or none, of what I see?