Fractured Internet

I like Nathan Bransford’s blog, mostly because he asks interesting questions and then sometimes re-asks them, year after year, charting the answers. A recent question: “Where are you spending time online these days? Have you noticed your habits shifting?”

It made me realize how the internet has gone the way of television. You know how it used to be that large groups of people watched the same shows at the same time? Many many many people watched, for example, Friends on Thursday nights. Cable fractured that, and streaming services fractured it more, so there is rarely a television event we’re collectively tuned into at the same time on the same day.

Communities used to go to the same sites, making it easy to find your group. For instance, Babycenter, IVFC, or the Resolve boards. But now that we’ve fractured into so many spaces on the internet, it feels harder than ever to make connections. As the internet grows and gives us more options to gather, we gather in smaller groups and make looser connections.

How do you find new people and connections when there are so many places to go?