One interesting discovery during my school project was found online. There is a smartphone application called Nextdoor. Nextdoor is a private social network for neighbors and their community. It is easy to connect and talk with neighbors about the things that matter in the neighborhood including to list items for sale or go to the neighbors, keep users updated on road closures or construction. Once you put your current address, you are automatically connected to the chat log of your neighborhood. Being a member here, I could feel a sense of belonging to my neighborhood and community. A lot of communications on this app seem to happen regardless with age, race, sexuality and any other personal identities. Interestingly, what fascinated me here was the concept of individualism and collectivism just like we discussed in class. Most people on this app talk about what happened, and they report that to their neighborhood. I noticed that these postings develop into further and deeper discussion which brings stronger bond and collectivism to the community.
For example, there was a posting complaining about LimeBike, a GPS based bike rental system without the docking station, parked in front of a private property. After that, more people started to talk about how they had the same experience and would want to complain to the LimeBike company. After that, I saw some replies from CSUN students in the neighborhood explaining the purpose and benefit of LimeBike bringing to the community. This discussion got bigger and bigger, finally, Northridge homeowners community wrote a complaint to CSUN student association to mediate this issue better and LimeBike company which led to the creation of regulation and restriction of parking policy. In this digital era, I thought it was hard to find collectivism and sharing economy in a community as we get less personal face-to-face communication due to the internet and social media. However, I also realized and was glad that a clever idea and the cooperation of people can facilitate democratic conversation effectively understanding other people’s culture and community in depth.