The term “Tribe” over the last several decades has in my experience usually referred to groups of people in pre-modern civilization times, for example, American Indian tribes or aborigine tribes. Further back during Roman times I’ve seen references to the Germanic tribes, or even further back the “Twelve Tribes of Israel.”
With this point of reference, I was intrigued by mentions of “Tribe” to refer to groups of people with common interests in various social media groupings. This came up in a recent online discussion I had with Dr. Russell Hyken, rhyken@ed-psy.com , an educational and placement specialist living in St. Louis, and Steve Walters, stevenw@innerchange.com , from Utah, who handles the Social Media for InnerChange Family of Schools for Girls, on my online interview topic: Social Media for Educators.
It seemed the terms “Tribe” and “Community” are being used somewhat interchangeably, and it intrigued me that a term that seems to refer to ancient pre-industrial society organizations would be used at all in such a modern context. So, I asked why they thought the term “Tribe” might have been adopted in this modern age.
The speculative answer was that the term “Tribe” has connotations of a close-knit, bonded group of people, a connotation stronger than the term “Community” might suggest so far as personal relationships.
There is a lot of evidence that an impact of the internet and social media is the tendency to isolate people, replacing the vital need for personal face-to-face interactions by digital exchanges. We all see and hear of examples where young people spend so much time on FaceBook and texting that it seems impossible they will have much time for traditional socializing. And yet….
Just the simple facet of using the term “Tribe” to describe a common online set of connections suggests that behind all of this tendency toward isolation is a yearning for real connections, and that somehow people will figure out a way that in the long run the social network will enhance rather than diminish personal interactions.
Is this kind of optimism justified? You tell me!
To listen to the whole interview, go here.
For the archive of all articles and essays published by Woodbury Reports since November 1989, go to strugglingteens.com.
