Exploring Volunteering

We’ve all seen the headlines: many exaggerate and distort how we can use the web.

Imagine for a sec that we learnt how to fly thanks to some amazing piece of technology. How would the newspapers cover the story? How would the media cover the emergence as the uptake grew of wholly new piece of technology?

Substitute the word ˜flying’ where the papers talk about the web and you get the picture. Not much would probably change. This emphasises the point that much of issues are to do with the fact that the web is new. The behaviours associated with the technology and how the new possibilities influence our social relationships transpire later. The serious point here is that we are living through a period of profound social change, not just technological change. We’re all looking for answers. To find those answers we need to introduce a modicum of balance into the debate.

Take the example of technology that has become mundane. Learning to ride a bike was terrifying when we fell off for the first time, terrific when we were let to go solo. It was amazing when we learnt to play games and be with our peers, shocking if you consider cycling accident statistics! Revolutionary when we realised the significance of being able to go off our own away from our parents, and mystifying when tried to mend our first puncture.

Balance comes inevitably from experience, we need to give it time. However, web technology moves so fast we need to get this balanced perspective by carefully considering the issues.

Is there too much information?

Before looking at the web’s potential for changing how we can build new information and support services, it’s worth asking the fundamental question: is access to more and more information always a good thing?

We’re living through a Googlefication of our culture. There’s a belief that the web’s mission is to make more information readily accessible. Google’s seventh point in it’s explicitly stated philosophy is: “There’s always more information out there.” The right approach for a technology company, but is this the right approach if we’re concerned with the human value of information? Information can be empowering, but it can also be overwhelming and even anxiety provoking. Perhaps the real challenge is not technological. Information is a human issue, not a technical problem after all.

Mark Charmer made the analogy between Twitter and the invention of radar during the first half of the Twentieth century at the Media140 conference. Social media, like Twitter, is a new more powerful way of making the previously invisible life around us, visible. Just as radar did in its day. In fact, it’s an analogy that works for social media in general and the web. Radar’s battle is with ˜clutter’ things like rain and sandstorm that sometimes get picked up. Some of this peripheral vision information captured in social media can be useful, but plenty can lead to false alarms and worry.

Let’s look at three new capabilities that the web’s given. Although there are many others.

Anonymity

Anonymity is not new – writing – helplines – fax – but the web has opened up new opportunities for practitioners to make particularly early interventions that were either not practical before or did not offer a very complete form of anonymity.

When we look at the issue of how we ensure the security of the identity of users crucial for the effectiveness of information and support services, it’s striking how much of a shift is taking place. The rise of anonymity is significant because it empowers the service user. Unlike with confidentiality, anonymity is within the service user’s sphere of influence. It’s also subject to very personal drivers like feelings (such as embarrassment), rather than formal drivers such as the laws and organisational policies, as with confidentiality.

Ruthie Henshall, the singer and actress, said recently, “We’re constantly judging our insides on everyone else’s outsides”. She was describing how she coped with her own mental health difficulties. As a celebrity, the difference between how she felt on the inside and how people perceived her on the inside was perhaps even more pronounced. Anonymity gives you the opportunity to share what they are feeling on the inside, with others on the outside (it needs to be a safe environment to be able to facilitate this).

The strengths of friends as advisors are that they are emotionally supportive, acknowledge feelings and are non-judgmental and trusted. All things that it is difficult to feel about a trained advisor who you may typically only approach at moments of crisis. Trained advisors and professionals strength is in how they understand the options, provides accurate information and offer an external perspective on your situation.

Friends are crucial for relationships issues- when mental health problems involve relationships- users are less likely to reach out to mental health service providers. Health concerns are less likely to be discussed with friends, kept private and not shared.

Choice

Is there too much choice or can personalisation overcome the overwhelming threat of too much information? Young people are used today to using a whole range of online tools. It’s important to understand how these differ and compare if we want to offer a range of options to service users. Up to now, online information and support has previously often be about developing ‘oceans’ that can be accessed wherever and whenever the service user needs them. These vast oceans of information and support exist online where space is no longer a storage issue and communication can be asynchronous.

At the same time, and increasing as technology improves, the web provides information as a stream. It’s allowing much more synchronous information and support services to take place such as voice-based technologies, web cam and chat as user uptake grows and they become more cost effective. The web is also allowing more broadcasting or live streaming of events or conferences that can provides information and support.

Given the choice that now exists both for service users and providers, the challenge is to offer a balance of services or to understand better what you specialise in so that you can build partnerships with organisations that complement your work/services.

“Online is good if you want to remain anonymous and don’t feel comfortable talking to someone face to face, or if there is no services to help you in your area.” – Participant, Self Harm project talking about the discussion boards on TheSite.org.

Participation

Finally, participation is a significant new capability offered by the web because of how it is shifting the relationship between service users and providers.

“Young people are creators not consumers of the services.” – Sally Carr, Leader in Charge, Lesbian & Gay Youth Manchester

“It’s great as it allows you to get advice from people that have been through the same thing and makes you feel good when you can relate and give advice to others.” – Participant, Self Harm project talking about the discussion boards on TheSite.org.

Services are no longer just about the delivery, they are also now about enabling users to feedback and be part of the continual improvement of the services themselves.

Three examples demonstrates three different ways in which participation can work. This models can broadly be distinguished by what the aims of the participation are. Namely:

Improving public services

Patient Opinion is a great example of this work to rethink the way the knowledge and experience of service users can help transform public services if it is understood and recognised by service providers.

Mapping of all services, both public and community

The Aliss Project is a great example of this drive to use the web to better map what services are available both in the public sector and the voluntary sector, so that sufferers of long term conditions can more easily access services available.

Developing communities for social change

Mind Apples is a great example of how the web can bring together communities of individual inspired by a call to action. In this case, helping to reframe mental health as the pursuit of health, rather than the overcoming of illness. In this campaign, Mind Apples calls on people to share what five things can contribute to a healthy mind.

Challenges

• How can we use new technology to offer early intervention?
• How can we use new technology to widen access to our services?
• How can we use new technology to change the relationship between service users and service providers?

Over the years there’s been a progressive trend towards valuing content over context in how we communicate as a society.

Ever since writing took over from our rich oral tradition, contextualised communication has been increasingly sidelined by the content of what we communicate.

The history of Christianity in Western society is a case in point where historically after the Reformation, debate turned on whether the content or the context of scripture was the right path to spiritual understanding.

Today, the focus on content is really a battle over how we communicate as a society. Is it better to keep our communication clear and singular in meaning? Or is it more accurate to accept that what we communicate is always multi-layered, nuanced and requires reading between the lines?

One way to understand the Enlightenment is as a movement that argued passionately for the former, while the fightback with the Romantics a century or so later, was a passionate defence of the latter.

Social web: where content is king

Many have remarked that the social web is simply a step on from broadcast or mass media, which was in turn a step on from the printing press. Each technological advance has added weight to the ‘content camp’, and detracted from the ‘context camp’ approach to understanding and successfully communicating together as a society.

With the dominance of content, the lack of context in communication is problematic to say the least. Again, a popular observation about the social web is that a key characteristic is the cross-cutting context in which much of the communication on it takes place. For example, a blog post can be written in a particular time, reacting to a particular stimulus and shaped by the author’s particular mood of the moment. However, that blog post can be found by readers later on in very different times, places (thanks to searchability and durability of the web) and replicated within very different contexts. Web content loses it’s context even quicker than other forms of modern communication.

Online support and advice where content is king, on the face of it, is even more problematic than just simply communicating a message.

Online support services: out of context

How do we understand content without the context of body language, vocal intonation, personal connection or understanding of the author’s past history, personality and behaviour? Albert Mehrabian’s much misunderstood observation on content and context is a great example. Mehrabian understood just how context (verbal and non-verbal cues) can be critical to understanding the content of our communication when we’re expressing thoughts laden heavy with emotion and feeling. Surely this tendency of the social web to emphasise content over context, poses an enormous challenge to any online advice service seeking to support users emotional, as well as information needs.

For this reason online advice services must play to their strengths. Through our work on askTheSite on TheSite.org responding to questions posted by users in confidence online, it is clear that putting content before context can have its benefits.

Context can act as a barrier or cloud to understanding the content or heart of the matter. The style of delivery and the packaging of the message can distract, mislead or detract from an advisor’s understanding of what the author of the content might intend to mean. Presented with just the content of the issues, with the context of the user’s personal history, personality and rapport very definitely in the background, an advisor is in a better position to be able to respond to the user’s issues and concerns at hand.

Secondly, enabling service users to concentrate on communicating content anonymously, can liberate them from the embarrassment and anxiety of the context they’re in, that may have prevented them from talking in the round about the issues they face. Online support can offer the user the safety of anonymity and confidentiality that may help persuade users to speak up about issues affecting them that they may not have been able to share with anyone else. This makes online advice a vital plank in any strategy to improve the early intervention and support we can offer young people.

Interestingly, stripping out the context, removes most incentives for service users to ‘test’ the support service, posting joke, blank (silent) or hoax questions. The issue of test callers is a non-trivial matter for many telephone support services, where test callers can place a huge burden on scarce resource and capacity.

Contextual communication: making a comeback

Perhaps as the social web matures, so contextually-based communication is just starting to make a comeback. What to many is Twitter’s banality, is misunderstood phatic communication putting the context before the content. Foursquare, on the other hand, is a reminder of the power of communication that comes with a built-in geolocational context.

For all these advances, it is worth noting how utterly dismal current software is at processing contextual information. Content is still king. You only have to look at how it’s possible to build a multi-billion dollar business on keyword search of content to understand that. Given this current landscape, it’s important that online advice and support services play to their strengths and understand their weaknesses in this content vs context battle going on around them.

Image courtesy of Weidmaier on Flickr