Mike Caulfield: The Garden and the Stream: A Technopastoral
- Caufield argued that the dominant mode of online interaction had become the “stream,” exemplified by platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and email inboxes.
- These streams present information as a single, time-ordered path, emphasizing the immediacy and self-assertion of individual utterances.
- While valuable for conversation and rhetoric, Caufield argued that the stream is unsuited for accumulating knowledge and building a deeper understanding of complex issues.
In contrast to the stream, Caufield proposed the “garden” as a space for cultivating personal knowledge over time.
- Gardens are characterized by richly interlinked information, arranged and rearranged to facilitate exploration and the discovery of new connections.
- Information in a garden is timeless, iterative, and integrative, allowing for multiple perspectives and pathways through the material.
- Caufield saw the garden as a counterbalance to the ephemerality of the stream, a space where knowledge can mature and deepen over time.