Tensions and blurred boundaries: social media, emerging institutions, and an emerging commons

Paul reached out to me because of deep similarities between his career arc and my own, and how we are both facing difficult challenges and threats along with the opportunities and gifts of social media. That personal discussion became inexorably intertwined with a general discussion of social media, the meaning crisis, religion and institutions. This is the first of what promises to be a series of important discussions. Social media blurs old distinctions between speech and writing, between privacy and the public, between institution and the commons, etc. That blurring makes a deep difference within and between individual lives.