When I talked about the built environment and the brain my interest in urban architecture’s direct impact upon being autistic was keeping me from recognizing other analogous areas of obvious interest to me, such as online conversations.

I am fascinated by the fact that the “social” in social media can mean different things from one platform to the next. In light of Alan Penn’s thought, the quality of social intelligence that emerges from each social media platform is vastly different. And that emerging intelligence is nurtured by the architecture of the software. Whether the developers know it our not, the software answers a litany of questions – How do people communicate with each other? How do you deal with spontaneous conversation? How do people find each other? How do people deal with toxicity?

After bringing to Alan Penn’s attention my post on autism and architecture, he replied, “That adds a fascinating dimension to the discussion. I have been thinking about how to include neurodiversity.” In the interest, then, of “facilitating conversation” as highlighted by its title, I directed Alan Penn to Eller’s post.

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Referring posts

• Sometimes I accidentally stumble into topics that I...