Facebook as Hospice Care

Three weeks ago, we'd be about to learn of the closing of the Art Institute of Ft. Lauderdale.  In some ways, it wasn't a surprise--the school had been declining, and with enrollment falling below 500 students, in some ways, it was just a matter of time.  

I'd spent over 5 years saying that the current path was not sustainable, yet some part of me was still shocked when the closing was announced.  I wanted to analyze it all, yet again for the umpteenth time.   I wanted to create alternate scenarios to see if it could have been salvaged.  But what was the use?  As had been the case since the company had been sold to Goldman Sachs, it wasn't going to be up to the people at the school.  Maybe it never had been.

I've been interested to see how others have reacted.  Most reactions I'm gleaning from social media--I'm not in the kind of daily contact with AiFL folks.  I've been most interested in Facebook as a space for grieving and hospice-type care when an institution closes.

There is now a closed Facebook group, We Were AiFL.  I've been enjoying seeing people's posts about good memories, and I've been happy that most of the anger has been kept off the page.  There's sadness about what has been lost, but for the most part, it's been pictures and stories of what the school did well.

The historian in me wonders what will happen to all of our social media posts--a lot of our history has been stored there in recent years.  But that's a question for a different post.

I've been reading much analysis through the years of the dangers of social media, and I'm willing to admit that social media can be a sucking black hole that leaves us tired and brain-frazzled and angry and _______.  But it has some benefits too.  It's worth remembering those benefits before unplugging completely.

In fact, I would argue that the problems with social media may be more about our phones than the social media sites.  I don't have a smart phone, so I'm not continually plugged in, the way others are--thus my social media usage is slightly easier to control.  However, I do spend a lot of time with the larger computers in my life.

Instead of arguing about the dangers of social media, perhaps we should spend more time thinking about how these sites can create community and utilizing them to do that.