"The Heart of The Well"

After last week's article about the Whole Earth Catalog and the WELL, I felt I had a good base knowledge of how virtual communities began. I was happy to see that the reading this week was another article about the WELL. This time the focus of the well was not the general exchange of information but instead how that information started to change peoples lives.  The article is called "The Heart of The Well" by Howard Rheingold. 

The beginning of this article discussed one subgroup of the well dedicated to the discussion of parenting. If a child woke up in the middle of the night sick, parents could log on the WELL and talk to a doctor because someone was always online. Before reading this article, I never thought about how much we use the internet for little things. I'm sure everyone has gotten sick and resorted to googling their symptoms. Most of the time there is someone who has experienced the exact same thing and a doctor has posted the reasoning for it. It sometimes gives a sense of relief knowing that you are not alone and the medical symptoms are normal. 

After the article discussed parenting, it went on to talk about the power of the WELL. It gave examples of members who needed help and how other members responded. I thought it was truly amazing what could be done when a group of people far apart could pull their resources and make big things happen. The virtual communities that were created soon became like real communities because you saw the members doing anything in their power to get something done.

The final topic of this article was related to addiction to the system. Because people received constant feedback to their discussions, some people were always online. In my opinion this is especially true with today's technology. Since many people are using smartphones that have internet access, they are always online. People often do not know what to do when the internet goes out. This is a growing problem that will continue to get worse as communication through technology becomes even more common. 

Overall i really liked this article. After last week, I thought I had enough of the WELL but this article talked about the WELL in a way I was able to relate to. It was written by  a person who used the system in ways that I may use it. I also like how he included actual discussion posts. It was a good article that would be easy for anyone to understand.