In regards to “hits’ and ‘likes’, you might enjoy reading this post from danah boyd (although I assume that you have probably stumbled upon it before). She provides a different perspective on data and numbers:
Stats have this terrible way of turning you — or, at least, me — into a zombie. I know that they don’t say anything. I know that huge chunks of my Twitter followers are bots, that I could’ve bought my way to a higher Amazon ranking, that my Medium stats say nothing about the quality of my work, and that I should not treat any number out there as a mechanism for self-evaluation of my worth as a human being.
The only thing that I am unsure about is that by my nature of ‘responding’ I often have someone in mind associated with my writing and reflection, is this though a different sort of ‘audience’?
Hey Pal,
I really dig the danah boyd bit. I hadn’t seen it before.
But I think she’s right: Numbers say nothing about the quality of our work, but we often internalize it that way, that’s for sure. Because we expect numbers — and see other people getting numbers — we question ourselves if we don’t get numbers. That’s discouraging and destructive.
Which has me thinking about all of the people who have kids blogging and posting to social spaces. I wonder how they are teaching kids to better balance their self perceptions with “the numbers” they are receiving.
If that’s not a conversation happening in classrooms where posting to online spaces is the norm rather than the exception to the rule, aren’t we harming our students?
Bill
Sorry Bill,
I am not sure what happened, but I forgot to reply.
I could not agree more with your point. What we teach is so important, as much for the adults as it is for the children.
I really like this quote from Tarleton Gillespie: