Are we connected yet? [For CCK12]

We have been at this CONNECTIVISM thing for the past 3 weeks. That is so far the length of my exposure to connectivism, connectivity and networking. Sure, I have been part of many networks,from the internet-based social networks to real-life community networks (i.e. neighborhoods, alumni, family networks, etc - which are all being represented in the internet btw), but I have never truly paid any attention to the elements and semantics of connectivity.

According to Downes in 2006, in his paper "Learning Networks and Connective Knowledge", he mentioned 3 elements of the network:
a. entities - the connected things that send and receive signals
b. connections - the links between entities (can be physical or virtual)
c. signals - the message sent between entities

The question that I want to pose in this blog is, how do we practically define connections in the virtual world?

In the real world, the answer is simple, if you are my cousin, I am almost certainly your cousin, and if you are my parent, I am most certainly your child; and socially, if you are my classmate, then I am yours too, etc.

And yet in a virtual world with superusers, ordinary users, lurkers, inactive users, how do we determine connections. For example, I may have 600 friends in my facebook account and yet, I cannot say that I am connected to all of them. Quite frankly,I do not get to see all their posts, and certainly, I do not believe that they see and real all of mine. In the same context, when I post a question in google groups and it is virtually received by everybody, am I connected to those who ignored that particular email? How about to those who read it but did not do anything about it?

Thus I submit that the 3 elements that were mentioned by Downes above should have a 4th element: FEEDBACK. It is only in feedback that we are assured that the message is received. Whether orn ot there is action may be considered a separate matter - in many cases, non-action is an action. But we have to separate this decision of the receiving entity to NOT ACT as the preferred action versus the receiving entity's inability to receive the message in the first place.Therein lies the value of FEEDBACK.

With FEEDBACK, we are assured of a connection.