Just how Social are Social Media Tools within the Learning Environment?

The Thompson article in our assigned readings this week provided some refreshing insight on the topic of SMT's in learning environments. The study focused on the students' use of first person singular and plural pronouns and verb types used when describing their learning experiences with SMT's. As a result of the study, the authors concluded that, while a small measure of "collective intelligence" was achieved (a main goal of the use of SMT's in education)and "group-oriented and self-oriented utterances were evident", the use of both verbs and first person singular pronouns when describing their activities pointed to a more traditional, autonomous mode of operating. Having now ingested several articles which clearly point to SMT's being the wave of the future in business and education, I have also come to recognize that, like face-to-face relationships, it takes time to create truly effective ones....even in the fast-paced world of Web 2.0. We are accustomed to asking Google for a definition and receiving a reply in 0.29 seconds or similar. We are not accustomed to the idea that anything (learning, relationships, information-seeking, yes, ANYTHING) should still require time. Has technology made our lives easier? That's definitely a loaded question. Of course, it's easier to jump in a car and drive to the store than walk or bike to it. It's way easier/faster to stick a frozen dinner in the micro and "nuke" it for a few minutes than to light a fire (or turn the stove on) and cook a meal in a pot for an hour. But what are we doing with all the extra time that technology is affording us? How are we handling being so much faster and more efficient? Less stress? More quality time for relaxing with family and friends or just more time to do...what? For all our progress, it still takes time to build a relationship and it still takes 10 months (yes, 40 weeks) to grow a baby in utero.