The article on Social Network Sites suggested that social network systems attract different types of cultures. Such cultures form and typically segregate themselves and there is less initiation in a social network group between strangers as compared to a social networking group. This implies that the openness of social networks are limited and confined in scope. People don’t necessarily seek to communicate with anybody, but rather they seek a specific audience of people with specific interests.
Relationships in social computing cultures differ from real world face to face relationships. One of the differences is that any profile or personality is not a true and unbiased snapshot of someone’s true personality. Any profile like one on MySpace is crafted with specific pictures and essentially is tailored to what a given user wishes to reveal. One of the articles mentioned that the majority of people admit to lying in an online profile.
What is socially acceptable in an online virtual community differs as well. The article on the MUD community revealed how people become attached and identify with their created avatars, even if those figures don’t resemble their actual physical characteristics. I have some friends who used to play World of Warcraft and they tell me that they were very attached to their character in the game because it leveled up and grew the more they played the game. Several users expressed a vicarious feeling of disgust at the act of a rape in a MUD world even though the physical act did not take place. Although there are fewer ways of enforcing rules in the online community, it is not without means of regulation and self governance as shown by the fact that the people in the mud got together to decide the fate of Mr. Bungle.
For the user of Mr. Bungle/Dr. Jest the online community represented an opportunity to escape from the consequences of real life. There are fewer repercussions in communities where your true identity is kept secret. This can lead to dehumanizing and ridicule of individuals in public forum settings like groups in facebook that target specific people. Websites like ratemyprofessors or hotornot other examples of how people will use social computing as a means of subjective evaluation and criticism.
Blogging has elicited different reactions from educators and intellectuals. Some take the view of Andrew Keen that allowing many people to contribute to a pool of knowledge causes the quality of writing to decrease, and makes it difficult to discern between the words of an expert and that of a less informed but still opinionated writer. On the other hand, there is the notion that blogging, and wiki entries are a form of democracy that allows average Joe with a computer to have his voice heard. People can use blogging for many different reasons as discussed in article 5 “Blogging as a Social Activity” of the reading. Influencing people, updating people, receiving feedback and releasing tension were four such reasons discussed in the article.
The most interesting aspect of the article that discussed web 2.0, in my option, is the notion that online communication evolves in time to make it easier and easier for users to create more intense and complicated relationships with each other. We can even communicate through various interfaces like hand held devices. In social computing, people don’t only produce information, but they also consume information at an incredibly fast rate. In the future there might be web applications that are so detailed that if we see a person in real life we could potentially learn their entire life story without ever having to talk to him or her.
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How much of this behavior and assessment is human social nature and how much is technology?
ReplyDeleteThat's a good question. I want to say that human nature dictates behavior and technology is the means of achieving it. However, I remember reading an article on how the internet and other types of technology have hurt the ability of young people to communicate face to face. The author claimed that greater time spent chatting on instant messenger translated to a greater difficulty in reading body language and facial expressions. Hopefully this is not true :)
ReplyDeleteHuman social nature and technology feed off of each other so it's difficult to distinguish the impact of one versus the other.
Very engaging read. Your last paragraph may have hit on one of the primary attractions of social computing. Akin to a character in a novel or movie, it takes far less time and personal emotional investment to get to know someone's online identity. You interact on your own terms, in your own time. If you've grown up with that kind of interaction and control, when you don't have it in a real life environment, do you think your relationships suffer?
ReplyDeleteWhen you're dealing with asynchronous instant communication (like this blog) I think expectations play a large factor in the interaction. For example when I write something on this blog the message is almost instantly available to readers, but any responses will be delayed and possibly not occur at all.
ReplyDeleteAddressing the question of whether or not relationships suffer, I would argue that traditional face to face relationships can suffer if a user decides to shun or neglect those relationships for online relationships. I have a friend who plays WOW and he doesn't go out with friends and interact with them in real life much anymore, choosing instead to play the game with his online friends. Socially he was never very popular or outgoing. He has been teased about his physical appearance when we were in school, and he wasn't the type to engage with other people in real life. I can understand why he would rather socialize in the game because in WOW he is not judged by his outward appearance and whenever he wants to chat with someone he can just log on to the game.
I don't have empirical evidence on the subject but I think people who engage in social computing may neglect other types of relationships. Of course this doesn't apply to everyone because there are many people who are perfectly fine and still play MMORPGs, go to chat rooms, etc...
Since this is an extreme example I will also look at something more moderate like posting on an online discussion board. Assuming we're not in Wall-e and people still engage in face to face communication, I can't think of a reason why relationships would suffer outright with greater exposure to social computing. If someone had control issues and couldn't handle on the spot thinking, then it might be an issue. A person might be a little socially awkward if his main form of communication is posting on his blog, but I don't think that translates to a decline in the quality of his relationships with others.
I agree that people who engage in social computing don't necessary do so at the expense of their real life relationships. Although there are people who prefer their online versus real personas (what person wouldn't like to be better looking or smarter), most people I know use social computing as a supplement to, not a substitute for their real lives. Part of the attraction of real life relationships is your personal investment.
ReplyDeleteWhat stood out to me in your blog is the idea that people become attached to their avatars. It's very much a Web 2.0 ideal to create as part of socializing. We become attached to characters we design because anytime we invest energy in making something come alive - an idea, an emotion, a character, I think it's a manifestation of who we are or who we hope to be.
ReplyDeleteI'm sounding like what my husband would call a "tree hugger" but I think that's what social computing is an extension of how we socialize in real life. In another classmate's blog, they'd said that face-to-face equals true socializing. However, I've seen people eating dinner at a restaurant without "socializing" at all. I suppose as I read your blog as well as others, I'm beginning see that the core of social computing is that ability to communicate.