Back from BarCampNYC2
I’m back from New York City where I attended BarCampNYC2, the unconference where everybody is invited, everybody presents, nobody wears shoes, the rules change at least twice a day, people understand what you do for a living, and you get to spend the night in a Microsoft conference room.
Barcamp is highly equalitarian: not for political reasons but for geeky effectiveness. Things work when ideas flow freely and build on each other without obstacles. The rules (everybody presents, no shoes, sleep-overs, and the “two feet rule” or “If you’re not interested, change the conversation or use your two feet to move to another one”) conjure a social environment where barriers between individuals and social hierarchies crumble down and the flow of ideas is nurtured.
The BarCampNYC2 discussions were about coding, privacy and openID, social software, open source, the future of web apps, and entrepreneurship. But they were also about creating humane work practices (such as coworking) that allow smart and independent young individual to work, earn money, and have a career without selling their souls or renounce beauty and freedom.
Thanks to the organizers who did an amazing job keeping things going, finding sponsors, and feeding us; and thanks to Microsoft, that graciously and generously accepted Barcamp’s friendly takeover and let us sleep on the grey carpet.
[Read blog posts on BarcampNYC2, see what was discussed, look at pictures. Chris took pictures of my presentation and Tanya immortalized my fashionable socks.]
Technorati Tags: barcampNYC2, New York, technology
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 chronicles of bad experience: Verizon and Symantec
Everybody knows that bloggers like to bash companies that have displeased them. We do it because we feel angry and betrayed and want to get back at them. We also do it because we want to save others from unpleasant experiences and avoidable frustrations. Today it’s my turn to rant: let’s talk about Verizon’s greed and Symantec’s pitiful and misleading customer service. Fasten your seat belts.
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 unbearable lightness of a free copy of USA Today
A couple of weeks ago I travelled for work. One evening I found myself in the lobby of the hotel reading a free copy of USA Today left on a chair. I started thinking how rarely I read a true paper copy of a newspaper nowadays. Flipping through the pages of the newspaper, I also realized that, unless there were video-cameras in the hotel lobby, nobody would ever know what I was reading. Nobody would be able to reconstruct my behavior (which articles I read, how long did I spend on each page, which pictures I looked at). Then the thought hit me of how unusual this freedom is in our cyberconnected world.
From my site logs, I can learn a lot about people who visit my blog. I know which page they hit first, how long they stay, which pages they visit, an where they are coming from. I know their IP addresses, their geographical location, which words they entered in which search engine before coming to my site. Often I can even piece together who they are (“Hey, my friend Joy visited my site today. How nice of her!”)
Which means that when I surf the web, my behavior is recorded with the same frightening level of detail. Even the books I read can be connected to me, if I bought them on Amazon or at a physical store with my credit card. At work, most of what I do on my computer is logged and my e-mails must be stored for 7 years.
Nothing new here, of course. But for some reason that evening the true significance of our constantly logged life became very real to me. Reading that copy of USA Today seemed the lightest thing I have done in a long long time (light as in Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being; that book is haunting me in this period.)
I felt free. I felt anonymous. I felt happy.
Technorati Tags: big brother, kundera, weblogs
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