Early in the evolution of the Internet, a messaging system developed which allowed connected members to send text messages to each other. Instant Messaging, ICQ, SMS, and eventually Twitter all spawned from those early text messaging systems. During technical conferences and conventions an instant messaging channel would be setup for connected attendees to converse with each other in the background during presentations at the conferece. This background communication is called a “backchannel”.
Twitter has opened up a new backchannel. Now people don’t have to be at the conference or convention to participate in the background conversation. Yesterday’s LDS General Conference sessions were a marked example of this backchannel. Twitter generally works in a subscription model. That is, I choose to receive someone’s Twitter messages, or in other words, I choose to “follow” them. I receive the short messages sent out by those that I follow and do not receive any messages from those that I do not follow. However, all Twitter messages are broadcast on Twitter’s public timeline. Several programs designed to facilitate receiving and sending Twitter messages have incorporated an ability to “search” the public timeline for specific words. Any messages that meet the search criteria get displayed and the rest continue to be ignored. Through some kind of a general agreement, the community of Twitter users interested in LDS General Conference used a special tag #ldsconf in all their Twitter messages (called “tweets”) about conference. And in that way a Twitter backchannel came into being during the General Conference sessions.
All that is just background!
I sat at my computer yesterday during the morning and afternoon sessions of Conference, watching conference on a TV and watching the Twitter backchannel on my computer. It’s was a very interesting experience. Most of what was on the backchannel was people quoting snippets from the talks. For instance:
lutez The 6 destructive d’s doubt, discouragement, distraction, diligence (lack), disappointment, disobedience. #ldsconf
fringies RT @bjhomer: “Net Usable Faith = Total Faith – Doubt and Disbelief. Interesting concept. #ldsconf (Said better than I did!)
somethinggirl “You don’t have to spend time as a Laman or Lemual to know that it’s better to be a Nephi or Jacob.” -Ballard #ldsconf #ldsconf
myldsnotebook We can not do a Google search to gain a testimony -Elder Ballard, I love it! #ldsconf
somethinggirl “We live in an area when boundries of decency/good taste are being pushed to the point where there’s no boundries at all.” #ldsconf #ldsconf
cboyack “The commands of God have taken a beating in the vacillating marketplace of ideas.” – E. Ballard #ldsconf
cougartex We need strong Christians who can defend the gospel of Christ against moral relativism and militant atheism. – Elder Christofferson #ldsconf
These were interesting in that they quickly showed what was important to the people watching the conference. More importantly, I was quickly supplied with a delightful list of quotes with little work on my part. The program I was using (from Yahoo! called “Sideline”) gave me the ability to “favorite” any of the tweets in the stream and collected them in a separate tab. I could later export this list of favorites and have my own quotebook. I really like that capability.
Another important part of the backchannel were the snippets of additional information. For instance, Sterling Fluharty (tweeting as PhDinHistory) sent out a couple of very interesting sets of statistics as the historical report for the Church was being read in General Conference’s afternoon session:
Increase in Children of Record during 2008 was up 24% over previous year – this could be the largest annual total since early 1980s #ldsconf
Annual growth of LDS wards & branches: 1.65% in 2004, 1.56% in 2005, 1.43% in 2006, 1.28% in 2007, 1.01% in 2008 #ldsconf
Converts Baptized per Missionary: 4.32 in 2003, 4.72 in 2004, 4.67 in 2005, 5.13 in 2006, 5.3 in 2007, 5.06 in 2008 #ldsconf
I was pleased that he had the data at hand and was able to quickly calculate these interesting statistics. It certainly added a new dimension to what was going on in the conference.
In another example, when President Monson announced that Elder Neil L. Andersen had been called to the Quorum of the Twelve to replace Elder Wirthlin, the official Church twitterer LDSNewsRoom sent out a link to Elder Andersen’s bio information. Later when the new Young Men’s Presidency and the new Sunday School Presidency were announced, links to that information were tweeted by LDSNewsRoom. While it was information that was fairly close at hand, I didn’t have to go look for it, Twitter brought it to me.
I’m looking forward to today’s General Conference sessions … and to the Twitter backchannel. It definitely adds another dimension to the conference!
re: “Increase in Children of Record during 2008 was up 24% over previous year – this could be the largest annual total since early 1980s #ldsconf”
Although the US Census Bureau in recent weeks reported that 2007 saw the most babies born in the U.S. ever that year, and a great many of them out of wedlock, there is no reason I know of to think that the 24% increase in # of children of record is really so. Much more likely is that the way that the number of children of record reported in this conference was figured far differently than in previous years. I noticed that this year they used the word “new” in front of children of record.
Last year, I phoned the Church’s membership department and asked them how they figure the Children of Record #. Back then, it is a formula where they add babies blessed and subtract those turning 8 or 9 or something, and I don’t remember what else. Anyway, the previous number was not what I thougt it was, after I learned they were using this formula.
I think, too, that transparency in this number may have become more opaque, since I noticed it was rounded (a practice they also did during much of the 1980’s, which itself obscures true numbers a bit). I will have to make another phone call to the Church’s membership department to see if they can enlighten me on this year’s number, and how it was calculated versus previous years’ numbers.
It has been interesting to me for some years to see how low the number of children of record has gotten, especially given that our Church’s membership is more than 250% of what it was then (barely over 5 million), and yet, even this year’s numbers are less than they were in 1992, when children of record got up to 124,000!
If previous years’ numbers were calculated the same way the 1982 number was (and I don’t know either way if they have been), but if they have, and if that is any close indicator of LDS fertility rates, then they may have dropped as much as 70% in the last generation!
Perhaps this year’s numbers are truer to what the TFR (Total Fertility Rate) is and has been. Perhaps fewer babies who have been blessed have also been baptized over the last decade or two. Perhaps that is why the numbers have gotten so low!
Either way, it is quite apparent that “Ephraim” (a name that literally means ‘fruitful’) is far less so now. And that, in fact, in answering the question put to music, “Shall the Youth of Zion Falter?”, one may answer, unfortunately, ‘Yes’! and this, also unfortunately (and differently than the song meant it to be understood), in sheer numbers (of babies being born into LDS families)!!!