Thank you, YouTube!
It’s true, I’m in a reclusive mood right now, and I’m not cultivating my friendships as I should. Yet, this seems a bit of a overstatement, dear YouTube. I swear, I do have some friends. I’m pretty sure I can prove it, too.
The NY Times on using social software to connect the dots
Clive Thompson’s article on today’s New York Times Magazine is an interesting reflection on what social software can and cannot do to help intelligence agencies gathering and analyzing information.
Among other things, Thompson discusses two proposals submitted for the Galileo Award, a competition created by the C.I.A. to collect ideas on how to improve information sharing among American intelligence agencies. The first proposal, written by C.I.A. Calvin Andrus, proposes to use wikis and blogs to collect and share information among agencies. By allowing linking of information and ideas, previously disconnected pieces of data are shaped and structured by the dynamics of a social network.
If analysts and agents were encouraged to post personal blogs and wikis on Intelink — linking to their favorite analyst reports or the news bulletins they considered important — then mob intelligence would take over. In the traditional cold-war spy bureaucracy, an analyst’s report lived or died by the whims of the hierarchy. If he was in the right place on the totem pole, his report on Soviet missiles could be pushed up higher; if a supervisor chose to ignore it, the report essentially vanished. Blogs and wikis, in contrast, work democratically. Pieces of intel would receive attention merely because other analysts found them interesting. This grass-roots process, Andrus argued, suited the modern intelligence challenge of sifting through thousands of disparate clues: if a fact or observation struck a chord with enough analysts, it would snowball into popularity, no matter what their supervisors thought.
Misery and delight of a virtual room of our own
A few months ago I wrote about the distinction between vision and reality of online socialization that Russell Beale made in his talk at CHI2006.
The Vision was about what’s good about the digital connected world: plenty of free information and the ability to connect with many individuals in real time. The Reality was about what’s not so good about technology: isolation, bias, and self-centeredness. “Information is selected and filtered out based on preference: we cut out what we don’t like or don’t agree with. Technology enables an ignorance society. Even when we are physically present, we are socially absent.”
A recent post by David Wong on Pointless waste (via Karl Martino) lists seven reasons why living in this wonderful networked world makes us feel miserable. David Wong describes how technology allows us to lock ourself in our own little cozy world and progressively lose the ability to deal with the annoyances and roughness of the real world. The real worlds is not as pleasant and comfortable as our virtual worlds (Second Life, anyone?) but it’s, indeed, real.
The power of numbers that measure (social) performance
In number games and social software, dana boyd observes how we sometimes get obsessed with numbers that represent our performance—think game scores or, in her example, increasing miles per gallon while driving an hybrid car. The effect on our behavior can be even more powerful when these measures are socially determined as for the popularity score on Consumating and—why not?—blog ranking on Technorati.
And then i was thinking about the people on Yahoo! Answers who spend hours every day answering questions to get high ranks … There’s no real gain from getting points but still, it’s like a mouse in a cage determined to do well just cuz they can.
The internet is giving us a sort of social nerd paradise. We can actually measure our popularity with a number that everybody can see, rather than having to rely on fuzzy and contradictory social feedback.
Blogher06 day 1: where the women bloggers learn to build communities
(Attending the session: So you have this crazy idea, Starting a community-based blog site with Melanie Morgan, Nancy
White, Susannah Gardner and Lauren Gelman - blogged live by Heather Barmore)
Type of blog communities and power structures
Nancy White described three different types of communities that can be created around a blog:
- one blog/one blogger communities: people gather around one-blogger blog, visit the blog consistently, and leave comments;
- topic-centered communities: several bloggers connect by discussing a common topic, linking to each other’s blogs, and commenting each other posts (e.g., mommy bloggers, travel bloggers, food bloggers);
- multi-blogger communities: several bloggers contribute to the same blog.
Communities also differ in how the power is distributed among members. For example, in the one blog/one blogger community the power is usually concentrated in the hands of the blog owner. She chooses the topics and sets the tone and the rules of the discussion. (In some cases, the discussion in these type of communities has a hub-and-spoke shape, with each reader addressing the blog author rather than other readers.)
CHI 2006: Is technology good or bad for social interaction?
One of the discussion threads at the CHI Conference examined the effects of technology on social interaction and socialization.
In his talk on mobile blogging, Russell Beale (University of Birmigham, UK - blog) described two different views on the effect of technology on socialization, what he calls Vision and Reality.
The Vision–the optimistic view on technology and socialization–emphasizes the connectivity of the digital world: information is easily available, fast to get to, and free; everything is networked with everything else, making communication, expression, and free speech uninterrupted and immediate. Technology enables a knowledge society. Even when we are physically absent, we can be virtually present and participating; anywhere, anytime.
The Reality–or the pessimistic view on technology and socialization– emphasizes isolation and the disconnection between the physical world and the digital worlds. Technology can create a closed, self-centered, insular world, where people pay attention to what’s happening in their heads and on their devices rather than in the outside world. People are engaged with their iPods, SMS, mobile phones, and stop paying attention to what’s going on around them. Information is selected and filtered out based on preference: we cut out what we don’t like or don’t agree with. Technology enables an ignorance society. Even when we are physically present, we are socially absent.
So, is technology good or bad for social interaction and socialization?
When technology hurts social interaction
Gerard McAtamney presented a study on the effect of wearable computers on real life conversations. While a few people moved around the room with cyberpunk devices implanted on their bodies, we discovered that paying attention to a stream of information from a wearable device while talking to somebody has a negative impact on the conversation.
Now, if you ever found yourself talking to your spouse when s/he is reading a newspaper, or surfing the Internet, or watching football on TV (or more likely doing all three things at the same time) you already know what information overload can do to social interactions. Trying to talk to somebody who is paying attention to something else is a quite unrewarding social experience.
The study examined three experimental conditions (normal conversation - no wearable; wearable present but switched off; wearable present, switched on). In the "wearable on" condition, the device (a head-mounted Xybernaut 4 Shimadzu display, to be precise) flashed visual stimuli to the wearer (a Powerpoint presentation, simulated communications such as emails, text messages, phone calls, and calendar reminders). Both wearer and non-wearer were asked to evaluate the wearer attention and concentration, eye contact, perceived naturalness of the conversation, and perceived impact of wearable on the conversation.
The results showed significant impact of the swiched on wearable, and no effect when the wearable was present but off, except for the initial irrepressible burst of laughter. Even if the bulky wearable looks funny and improbable like a futuristic device in a 70s sci-fi TV show, it didn’t actually impact the quality of the conversation as long as it was off.
I found interesting that the wearers of the computing device were more distressed than the non-wearers. While they felt distracted and an overwhelmed, their partners often did not realize the extent of the attention and memory disruption caused by the device.
During the Q&As, it was pointed out that wearable computers break the "common ground" rule of communication: clearly, one of the two people involved in the conversation is aware of information the other is not. The non-wearer may be suspicious of what the other person is doing. Am I under surveillance? Is the other person recording the conversation? What does she know that I don’t?
I wonder what happens with practice. Perhaps the device wearer gets better in following two streams of information. Or–more likely–the wearer might learn how to fake attention and understanding (you know: the occasional nod and I’m-listening-to-you mmmh sound). Or they may just stop caring they can’t follow the conversation. They just look so cool in a nerdy kind of way.
Using of technology as a coping mechanism
Irina Shklovski (Carnegie Mellon University - blog) discussed how people use technology to cope with a socially stressing event such as long distance residential moves. In her study, Shklovski looked at the changes in online behavior after a move as a function of self-reported depression/lonelines, gender, and type of Internet use.
There are two main strategies used to cope with emotionally taxing events: sociability (asking for support to friends and family) and escapism (looking for distraction to distance oneself from the cause of stress). These two strategy are reflected in two different patterns of Internet use. Using the Internet to communicate with friends and family and to maintain social ties is a sociability strategy to cope with stress; using the Internet as entertainment (e.g., browsing, listening to music, and watching videos) is an escapism strategy.
The results of the study:
- People who use the Internet for social activities (communicating with friends and family) before the move tend to perceive higher social support after a long distance residential move.
- People who use the Internet for entertainment, however, tend to show lower perceived social support and increased loneliness.
- As compared to the behavior of people who moved short-distance, long distance movers show increase in Internet use for social communication with friends and family, but only if they report low levels of loneliness.
- Men and women seems to cope with depression after the move in different ways. In general, women who reported higher level of depressive affect shortly after the move also reported using the Internet less for both social communication and entertainment.
- Men who reported higher levels of depressive affect shortly after the move increased their use of the Internet, especially for entertainment.
So, although the Internet provides useful tools to maintain social ties after a long-distance residential move, people don’t always use it that way, especially when they feel depressed and lonely.
How to create successful online communities
A number of papers presented at CHI analyzed participation in forums and other online communities.
Robert Kraut of Carnegie Mellon University discussed how to increase active participations in online forums. Although 52% of Internet users say they regularly visit online groups, active participation is not as common:
- 50% of "active" listservers have no traffic.
- only 5% of Slashdot new subscribers return
- only 16% of register users post, and 55% of them post only once.
- 40% of Usenet users who post ever return
- 25% of posts have no response.
Whether or not a user’s first post receives an answer has a strong influence on his/her future participation to the online community, which in turn determines the success of the community. Kraut examined the factors influencing the likelihood that a post will get a reply:
Context:
- The type of community (health support groups have the highest percentage of replies)
- The status of the poster (people who have already posted have a slightly higher probability to receive a reply)
- Cross-posted messages are more likely to receive a reply
Attentional Demands:
- More complex questions receive fewer replies (longer posts, using longer sentences and longer words)
- However, post frequency in the forum does not have an effect on the percentage of messages that receive a replies
Post content:
- Being on topic increases the likelihood of a reply
- Self-introductions are good
- Asking specific questions is good
So, if you want to receive a reply to your post, introduce yourself, be personal, write simply, and be on topic. And if you want your online community to thrive, make sure to reply to new users and provide instructions on how to write successful posts. To learn more about this study, read the paper [PDF].
John Riedl of the University of Minnesota showed how contribution to an online community increases when participants are given feedback on how useful their contribution is to other members.
Riedl’s study examined movie rating behavior of subscribers of MovieLens. Participants were asked to rate 150 movies they were familiar with and were given feedback on (1) the value provided by their ratings (on a 3-point smiley faces scale) and (2) which group will benefit from the rating (nobody, self only, people with similar movie interests, people with different movie interests, all MovieLens users.)
The results indicated that providing a measure of the value of rating movies motivated people to rate more movies. This was especially true if people with similar movie interests (rather than dissimilar interests or all users) benefited from the ratings.
Conclusions
Humans are social animals and seem to continue to behave as social animals even in this technological world. Technology doesn’t seem to substantially change the fundamental laws of social behaviors, but changes the context in which these laws unfold and amplifies their effects. Somebody could be a distracted listener 100 years ago, while reading the newspaper. Now, the variety and complexity of distractors is exponentially multiplied: people watch TV, browse the Internet, and sometimes wear nerdy-looking computing devices that continuously flash information.
People used to get lonely and depressed when they moved to a far location. They still get lonely and depressed and the main coping mechanisms don’t seem to differ, but technology can provide more numerous, more efficient (but not necessarily more effective), and cheaper ways to cope by socializing or escaping.
We evaluate our presence in a group by monitoring social feedback and we feel motivated when we realize that our contribution is valuable. In online forums, we cannot see how people react to our presence, but we still monitor social feedback by counting how many people reply to our posts and how they do it. We are more likely to contribute to an online community if we feel that our participation benefit somebody.
As Russel Beale suggests, technology has the potential to make us feel connected and socially engaged or isolated and self-centered. In the end, is how we use technology that makes the difference.
UPDATE: The latest issue of Hot Topics!, the publication by the Human Oriented Technology Lab at Carleton University, is dedicated to the impact of online behavior on offline socialization. Cara L. Donnelly reviews the literature on the relationship between Internet use and social behavior and arrives to he same conclusion I suggested in my post:
It appears that Internet use does not cause any offline social impact, but rather, peoples’ offline existence determines how they use the Internet.
Barry Wellman, who conducted a recent study on 350 randomly selected online Toronto residents, agrees: people still have closer relationships with their offline friends, but online communication tools are becoming increasingly more important to maintains social connections.
Tags: CHI2006, social behavior, technology, socialization, online communities
The social life of humans and machines: How to design for the social interaction
Solitary designers, lonely geniuses, and isolated creative teams: it’s time for you to think about social interaction for your user interfaces. No, I am not talking about social software, user-created content, or Web 2.0. I am talking about any old-fashion user interface: because for us human beings any interaction is a social interaction–even when we are interacting with "a stupid machine."
We all know this: we tend to treat objects that display intelligent behavior as humans. We curse at our computers and at frustrating websites, we trust or distrust them, we talk to them, we find them cute or insufferable; we get angry, happy, frustrated, outraged, even if there is no living creature on the other side. (Well, there is always a living creature on the other side: somebody has designed and built the application. And human qualities bleed into inanimate objects very easily.)
Interfaces can persuade, make us uncomfortable, happy, or unhappy. The personality of an interface emerges by the interactions with humans: the style of the content, the choice of words, the behavior, how well it responds to our expectations and needs, and the appearance blend together to trigger our all too human feelings. Interactions between humans and machines are conversations (or arguments) in which information is exchanged, connections are made, needs are satisfied or frustrated, and relationships are built. When we design applications we need to think of them as social entities.
Blogline ate my blog: The Dangers of Feed Aggregators
Once upon a time, blogs were conversational hubs. Posts were written to be commented, trackbacked, circulated, debated. Blogs were places you would go to. Strolling through cyberspace, you would visit A, follow a link to B, and engage in a conversation with C. Along the way, communities were created, friends were made, important discussion happened. Blogging required traveling and social interaction.
Then blogs became too many to be visited daily. RSS aggregators were developed. Blog posts were now coming to you when a blog was updated. It was easy to add another blog to the list. We found ourselves reading hundreds of posts a day. There was no time to visit blogs, leaving comments, think about what we had read. Gradually, the conversational aspect of blogging was lost.
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