THE way we communicate with each other as a society, and as friends, has changed markedly in the modern world.
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The internet and the unstoppable popularity of social networking sites like Facebook have had such an impact they have in fact changed the way of the world.
It has influenced the way we do business, and the way we interact with family and friends. Whether you are a fan of this development or not, interaction in a virtual world is now our reality.
A recent count found Facebook to have more than 1.5 billion active monthly users and the website’s reach continues to grow, year after year. Consider that the social networking giant was founded a mere 12 years ago and you get an idea of the staggering global reach it has built in a short time.
While there are a minority of individuals who have managed to resist these new ways of interacting, few businesses can afford to do that. Facebook, it’s been said, is too big to ignore.
And so it is that traditional community minded groups and organisations have had to reassess the way they connect in the modern world too.
The Border Mail recently reported on declining membership rates of Neighbourhood Watch divisions throughout the North East. Neighbourhood Watch chief executive Geoff Kloot said it was understood that the organisation had to consider a new model.
People are reluctant to attend traditional meetings like they once might have, but that doesn’t mean neighbours and communities can’t stay connected. Neither does it mean they don’t want to stay connected – it’s just that the way we stay connected has evolved.
With this realisation, a West Wodonga couple has started an email list to keep in contact with their neighbours.
Lizette and John Salmon begun compiling the list in 2014, which is now emailed to 41 per cent of the 145 homes within a one-kilometre radius of their Felltimber home.
The couple were inspired after reading about how that form of communication could increase a sense of belonging and “social connectedness”.
Neighbours can share news and report suspicious activity to each other via the electronic communication that’s the modern-day equivalent of a chat over the back fence. It’s not the same as having a good old-fashioned natter to your neighbours but it would seem to be, as Mrs Salmon says, the unstoppable progression of that.