Hi Scott,

I enjoyed reading your paper and thought you did a good job of discussing the benefits of social networking sites. The groupthink phenomenon is fascinating (albeit often disturbing) and I thought it was interesting how you applied it to social networking sites. However, it seemed like you might be discussing two distinct types of sites: educational social networking sites that are specifically designed to exchange knowledge within a particular community (like Servo), and general social networking sites like Facebook. It seems to me that the balancing test you use at the end - (While it may be true that the groupthink mentality, combined with the natural “locked in” nature of the net leads to less radical thinking, does this negative outweigh the positives brought about by social networks (privacy concerns aside)?)- might change depending on what type of site you are talking about. It would also be interesting to hear more about how sites like Facebook promote critical and radical thinking.

-- JuvariaKhan - 10 Dec 2009