rhythmaning (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rhythmaning) wrote2008-09-07 06:34 pm
rhythmaning) wrote2008-09-07 06:34 pm
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Thinking about social networking and stuff...
I have just been reading a piece on the New York Times website about the increasing role Facebook, Twitter and other forms of social media play in our lives (via BoingBoing.
It reminded me a lot of an article I read in the Independent earlier in the summer; I meant to blog about it at the time (indeed, I was going to tie it in to an article in The Economist about Jimmy Whales – the founder of Wikipedia - although, irony or ironies, articles on the Economist website can only be read by subscribers: it is distinctly not open source or “web 2.0”).
The article in the Indie, by Michael Savage (no idea if he is this Michael Savage or not; but it was in keeping with his thesis that I needed to Google him!), takes a privacy angle: are we happy that all this personal information is out there? (I was going to write “private”; but of course if it is on the internet, private is the one thing it isn’t.)
There is another angle though: that without an online presence – an online identity – we won’t exist:
We have grown used to being private people. I have always lived in a city; I barely know my immediate neighbours. One hundred and fifty years ago, that wouldn’t have been possible; in rural Britain, it probably still isn’t. (I recently spent a few days in a village of eighty people; apparently, it has high rates of alcoholism, especially in the winter, when the tourists go away.) In villages, everyone knows your business: what you’re doing, who you’re seeing.
I am still not sure that I feel easy about it, though: I want to control my identity.
The NYT article, by Clive Thompson, follows similar lines – although it looks mainly at the positives of social networking.
It describes a kind of “ambient intimacy” that accrues around social networking –especially Twitter.
Thompson goes on to discuss the width and depth of our social networks – real life and online. I wrote about a lecture Robin Dunbar gave as part of the Edinburgh Science Festival in April; some of Dunbar’s work involved the biological basis of social connections. He estimated that we can maintain a network of about 150 direct contacts.
Online social networking tools can extend this – but the connections are weak: we keep the same number of “deep connections”. The extension of weak connections may prove to be the value of social networking:
But there are problems. Once there, you can’t really leave.
I’m not sure where I am going with this; I think I am nearly done. I don’t “get” Facebook: I am barely present there; and, like many of the people Thompson talks to, I don’t get Twitter, either: I don’t want my every thought and feeling spread through the ether. I want to control and manage it.
I think I shall see how it goes.
It reminded me a lot of an article I read in the Independent earlier in the summer; I meant to blog about it at the time (indeed, I was going to tie it in to an article in The Economist about Jimmy Whales – the founder of Wikipedia - although, irony or ironies, articles on the Economist website can only be read by subscribers: it is distinctly not open source or “web 2.0”).
The article in the Indie, by Michael Savage (no idea if he is this Michael Savage or not; but it was in keeping with his thesis that I needed to Google him!), takes a privacy angle: are we happy that all this personal information is out there? (I was going to write “private”; but of course if it is on the internet, private is the one thing it isn’t.)
There is another angle though: that without an online presence – an online identity – we won’t exist:
Those whose lives aren't documented for all to see may become the oddballs.
"If you were an employer in five years' time recruiting someone and looked for them online only to find nothing, you'd think, 'what an odd sort of person,'" says Ilube. "What kind of person would engineer their teenage lives in such a way as to remove their digital footprint?"…
…And the more we put information online, the more we can be ourselves. Handing over information to social networking sites on our friends, habits, sexual orientation and career builds up such a clear picture of our "social graph" that creating a false impression becomes almost impossible. Could the age of total transparency spell the end for the social chameleon?
We have grown used to being private people. I have always lived in a city; I barely know my immediate neighbours. One hundred and fifty years ago, that wouldn’t have been possible; in rural Britain, it probably still isn’t. (I recently spent a few days in a village of eighty people; apparently, it has high rates of alcoholism, especially in the winter, when the tourists go away.) In villages, everyone knows your business: what you’re doing, who you’re seeing.
So we're all back in a global village, with an intricate knowledge of each other's misdeeds, triumphs and tribulations. It's another reason to relax, though. After all, if the internet brings us back to an age in which we're aware of each other's previously private lives, we may end up empathising a little more. And according to Matthew Taylor, there's more on the plus side. By some bizarre twist in the laws of unintended consequences, our digital profiles could fuel a boom in that unfashionable thing – real human contact.
I am still not sure that I feel easy about it, though: I want to control my identity.
The NYT article, by Clive Thompson, follows similar lines – although it looks mainly at the positives of social networking.
It describes a kind of “ambient intimacy” that accrues around social networking –especially Twitter.
Each little update — each individual bit of social information — is insignificant on its own, even supremely mundane. But taken together, over time, the little snippets coalesce into a surprisingly sophisticated portrait of your friends’ and family members’ lives, like thousands of dots making a pointillist painting. This was never before possible, because in the real world, no friend would bother to call you up and detail the sandwiches she was eating. The ambient information becomes like “a type of E.S.P.,” as Haley described it to me, an invisible dimension floating over everyday life.
Thompson goes on to discuss the width and depth of our social networks – real life and online. I wrote about a lecture Robin Dunbar gave as part of the Edinburgh Science Festival in April; some of Dunbar’s work involved the biological basis of social connections. He estimated that we can maintain a network of about 150 direct contacts.
Online social networking tools can extend this – but the connections are weak: we keep the same number of “deep connections”. The extension of weak connections may prove to be the value of social networking:
Sociologists have long found that “weak ties” greatly expand your ability to solve problems. For example, if you’re looking for a job and ask your friends, they won’t be much help; they’re too similar to you, and thus probably won’t have any leads that you don’t already have yourself. Remote acquaintances will be much more useful, because they’re farther afield, yet still socially intimate enough to want to help you out. Many avid Twitter users — the ones who fire off witty posts hourly and wind up with thousands of intrigued followers — explicitly milk this dynamic for all it’s worth, using their large online followings as a way to quickly answer almost any question.
But there are problems. Once there, you can’t really leave.
If you don’t dive in, other people will define who you are. So you constantly stream your pictures, your thoughts, your relationship status and what you’re doing — right now! — if only to ensure the virtual version of you is accurate, or at least the one you want to present to the world.
I’m not sure where I am going with this; I think I am nearly done. I don’t “get” Facebook: I am barely present there; and, like many of the people Thompson talks to, I don’t get Twitter, either: I don’t want my every thought and feeling spread through the ether. I want to control and manage it.
I think I shall see how it goes.
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