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or the 'audience' - and moves us from a world of 'reception' to one of creativity,
exchange, inspiration, and conversation.
2.2.6
The Digital Internet Is Good, but Hands-on Physical
Things Are Good Too
The excitement about the internet's capacity to distribute material, build networks,
and make connections can at times lead to a sense that human creativity only really
found its feet in the mid-1990s. Of course, that is obviously far from being the case,
as was noted at the very start of this chapter. It is surely preferable to see continuity
between today's creative practices and those of earlier times and continuity between
what people do in the digital realm and what they do in the physical world.
Services that make connections between the 'virtual' and 'real' worlds have
turned out to be offering something that people want. As Dougald Hine (
2009
) has
noted, the entirely virtual world of Second Life was somewhat popular in the mid-
2000s, but never quite took off, because most people didn't really dream of swap-
ping their physical existence for a cyberspace avatar.
11
Meanwhile, much simpler
technologies, such as Twitter and Meetup.com, which enable people to build quite
straightforward conversations and relationships with people whom they might actu-
ally have met or can plan to meet, have been more successful. Hine was a co-founder
of the School of Everything, which connects people who want to learn something
with people who want to share their knowledge. Hine sees the School of Everything
'as part of a larger shift in the way people are using the web, away from spending
more and more of our lives in front of screens, towards making things happen in the
real world' (Hine
2008
).
The rise of craft and maker communities (Levine and Heimerl
2008
; Gauntlett
2011
) offers a clear example - or rather a vast and diverse
range
of examples - of
people who like to do 'real world' things but whose activity has been given a sub-
stantial boost by the opportunity to connect, organise, share ideas, and inspire each
other online. There is much evidence of this. A study of online DIY community
participants by Stacey Kuznetsov and Eric Paulos (
2010
) obtained 2,600 responses
to an online survey about their motivations and practices (which means it was a self-
selected sample of enthusiasts, of course, but 2,600 is a remarkable number of peo-
ple willing to share their experiences).
12
The responses indicated a strong ethos of
'open sharing, learning, and creativity' rather than desire for profi t or self-promotion.
Over 90 % of respondents said that they participated in DIY communities by post-
ing questions, comments, and answers. They did this frequently and diligently:
almost half of the participants responded to others' questions, and posted comments
11
This bit about Dougald Hine and the School of Everything is a summary of some material that
previously appeared in Gauntlett (
2011
).
12
This bit about the Kuznetsov and Paulos study draws on an account of the study that I fi rst wrote
in Gauntlett et al. (
2012
).
