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Writing about Writing

Facebooking for knowledge

I’m finishing my Master’s degree here at DePaul very soon, but I have to admit something.  Some of the most interesting things I’ve learned in the past couple of years I didn’t learn in class, but from strangers I’ve never met.  Well, maybe not total strangers: like-minded friends-of-friends-of-friends is more accurate, but we know one another by little more than name and profile picture, and only because we belong to the same idea-sharing Facebook group.

This particular group started when one of my friends at Loyola wanted to share news discussions with his best friends from high school.  He later invited his college buddies, who then invited their own friends, and so on, until it grew to about a hundred people, spread out all around the world with a variety of beliefs, careers, and education backgrounds.  The only thing we have in common is a commitment to post interesting Internet finds and then debate them energetically.  For what it’s worth, we probably found “Gangnam Style” way before you did.

Anyway, I’m now part of three such groups, including one that deals with philosophy and another for former majors of DePaul’s International Studies program.  Give it a try.  It’s no less productive than posting videos of yelling animals.