Communties

The topic that we were asked to study this week is "Community"

The community that I have decided to discuss is my estate, I live in an estate called "Hamilton Place" and have done from the age of 7 (i.e. as far as I can remember back, I don't think many people can remember further back than that) I am 21 now. It is a average sized estate with 97 houses in it. Because of this fact, when I was growing up as a young lad around the estate playing football or walking around the corner to my friends houses, i used to know a lot/the majority of the people that lived in the estate. Not even just to know them by name but I knew them well enough to stop and have a chat with them. This was a community within itself. There was that sense of community, like a vibe. I had the ability to tell you the names of the people that lived in about 70% of the houses.

Two weeks ago I was attending a black tie ball on a saturday night, the problem was I had no suit, I knew that one of my god friends for years had been to a wedding the previous month. He agreed to loan me the suit that he had worn and since he only lived around the corner I decided to walk around and collect it. On the way around I realised that I did not know as many people as I used to. The number of people that have moved out of my estate and the number of new people that are living in my estate is astounding. It shocked me, I was amazed that the sense of community that I remember from when I was a young lad playing ball, getting in trouble off the neighbours, mothers out talking to their neighbours at their garden pillars was completely gone.. In fact I would struggle to be able to tell you 30% of the people that live in the estate!

I believe that the internet has played a major role in the cause of this.. People have become more incline to spend more of their spare time ingaging in online activity. Rather than physically meeting people and making small talk, its now been taking to an online setting, where people are not just making small talk they are joining for new online communities in what they are interested in and talking to people that have similar interests.