Google+ Paradigm

I'm making an attempt to stay active today. They say it's a common symptom for people with schizophrenia to sit for long periods of time just thinking. To me it's similar to watching the stream on Google+ as your inundated with media very little of which invites you to participate in conversation. It's feeding the need to know about current events but seems to lack the participatory element that is seemingly integral with the social network.

There are several barriers of course to participation:

•  public conversation invite everyone, but everyone is isomorphic to inviting no one. A poster might think, Wow I found this look how interesting! I think I'll post it on Google+, yet of a hundred things, people find interesting only a few are interesting to the follower. 
• The second most common barrier in my opinion is about self esteem. Insecurity about age, profession, knowledge all fit into the category of insecure self esteem.
• A third barrier is what I call the flood of information barrier. You may find a post interesting yet you might not comment if you find you have nothing to say after you have been inundated with information while sitting passively consuming the posts and comments.
• The generation gap which perhaps could regarded as a life experiences gap some time strikes out a prevents people from participating.
• Yet another barrier is simple ignorance. If you find the conversation is in regard to something you know little about you might refrain so that you don't sound "stupid". 

Despite the barrier though even for passive inundation of media Google+ has it's limits. To some these limits are obvious. Each individual is responsible for who they follow on Google+ so the content in a sense is filtered by your own personal preferences. The only risk is that your media is colored and not accurate because your perspective is limited, but Google+ is not a news network; it's more of a he said she said about this network. To that end if you sit passively reading the information then you have sacrificed your critical thinking skills. Who's doing the fact checking.

As for fact checking it seems more important now then ever. Reputations grow quickly and last a long time on the internet. It's not easy to change your reputation once something has gone awry. In a sense there is no separation between Google+ or other social networks and the real world. The internet has broadened the geographical limits and allowed us to communicate to a much larger audience then ever before, yet it has not dissolved peoples expectation of being treated as human and if you act like a jerk people will block you.

In the end Google+ is meant for humans, despite what you might think about cat's. While I could sit passively thinking for hours while looking across the room at the white on the walls at least Google+ gives me the ability to express myself to others and maybe learn from anyone I choose to follow. I can't control peoples opinion and wouldn't want to, but with a little critical thinking, self esteem and shredding of communication barriers Google+ has created a new paradigm.