Bearing Witness, A Tweet At A Time

Online, using social media, we can become each others' witnesses.

Take Eric Sheptock, a former crack addict and now homeless advocate who is the subject of a remarkable story in today's Washington Post, written by Nathan Rott. It's one of the most insightful and nuanced articles written about social media this year -- a must-read for anyone who questions the value of social networks such as Facebook and Twitter.

On Twitter, everyone is their own news channel, their own personally written and publicly shared newspaper. Which makes me wonder: do you follow people on Twitter whose lives -- whose fundamental set of realities -- are completely different than your own? Or have you created a digital echo chamber, following people who already share your interests and already think the way you do?