Albrechtslund, especially in the section “Life after social networking,” offers an insight in regards to alarming consequences of social networking. The author points out that our personal history on social network sites could become an unexpected source of distress after our departure from online community. Referring specifically to careless online behavior of youngsters who reveal too much personal information, the records of their activity could be “embarrassingly accessible later on.” When it comes to risks of disclosing personal information on social networking sites, Rossen discusses another distressing situation that could impact the lives and careers of not only youngsters but adults. A survey conducted in 2006 shows that 40 percent of employers would refer to personal profile of candidates on social networking sites such as the Facebook in the hiring process. There were even cases in which employers called off their job offers after consulting job seekers’ online profile.
To turn attention to the Weeks and Rossen pieces, each focuses on the nature of human behavior in online environment and compares it to real-life counterpart. Overall, Weeks tends to highlight parallels between online and off-line behavior. For instance, regardless of online or off line, “people will respond to people who sound like they are in trouble.” Some of Rossen’s discussions, in contrast, illuminate the peculiarity of online communications. To take on example, many users disguise and shift their (true) identity and become “protean selves,” a concept she borrowed from Robert Jay Lifton.
The LaRosse piece, while focusing on online behavior, is an empirical study of correlations between the Internet use and depression. For “moderately depressed populations” with heavy use of the Web such as students, Internet communications could provide a means of social support thus alleviate depression. At the same time, Internet communications could cause depression for inexperienced users, who feel overwhelmed by technical difficulties of navigating themselves on the Internet.
When it comes to a tendency to stay out or opt out of the Internet, Bigge pursues the subject from a unique perspective. He examines a phenomenon called “neo-Luddite movement” whose aim is “to reduce or control the technology that is all around us and to question its utility.” He argues as more voluntary social network sites take up online space, users are left with two extreme and polarized courses of action to take: “the constant, self-generated surveillance” of such sites and “the self-negation” that involves complete avoidance of social networking.
The Hague piece makes a stimulating observation about the usefulness of “micromedia” such as web blogs, podcast, and vlog. Hague suggests the increasing use of micromedia undermines our creativity and our ability to think innovatively in business mainly because we are “fooled” and blindfolded by the premise of their “usefulness.” To highlight this point, the author observes how bloggers misuse and misrepresent the concepts and the language of economics. One illuminating example comes from a blog post by “Seth,” who lamented that “bloggers blog too much: they’re littering an “attention commons.”” The author takes issues with Seth’s comment because of the careless and mindless use of the economic concept, “commons.” In today’s online environment, as Hague points out, attention is “no longer a commons” because it is “about individual expectations and preferences.” When we have limited media to disseminate and absorb information, we would likely end up paying attention to things we are not even remotely interested in and sharing virtual space with others whose interests, values, worldviews are uncompromisingly contradicting with our own. Such a situation may find a parallel in the concept of a commons such as park, where people from all walks of life share that space. But online space has now become more personalized and individualized (thanks to an array of technological options of micromedia) that we could choose to not to share that space with complete strangers.
Going back to Hague’s discussion about the ill-fated impact of micromedia on creativity and ability to think critically, isn’t it too pessimistic to say that “usefulness [of micromedia] is the enemy of creativity”? If online environment gives users plenty of room to build personal and individual space based on their choices and preferences (remind me of Galston’s “voluntary community), could the same space also generate innovative, productive, and engaging interactions, and perhaps cultivate creativity? Isn’t it too simplistic to blame the downfall of creativity on the utilitarian thinking (believing that everything must be useful)? Isn’t it up to individual users to decide what is useful and what is not?
To pursue these questions, I joined two online communities of Southeast Asia enthusiasts, since this is a topic I am a little familiar with (my academic background is in Southeast Asia studies). I am still finding clue to respond to my questions, but here is what I have been observing in the last few days.
The first community I joined is a study group on Southeast Asia in general (available from http://groups.yahoo.com/group/southeast-asian-studies/; 32 members as of 1 Feb 2009). The second group (available from http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10760920401; 287 members as of 1 Feb 2009) focuses on archaeology and history. Hoping to relate my social networking experience to my broad interest in the use of the Web in academic research, I have also started to observe interactions in a blog group of academic librarians. The site is currently being renewed and scheduled to restart on February 1, 2009 with new features such as posting of a monthly discussion theme related to technology and information seeking (see screenshot). I have not seen any new blog post today. But I am planning to stay tuned and participate in upcoming discussions. On a different note, I located these groups in an academic blogging portal called BlogScholar.com.
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As for the two online Southeast Asia groups, I have been part of these communities only for a few days and am still getting the feel of it. As a newcomer to the world of social computing, it has been quite a technical challenge to fully explore and utilize tools of communication (just like inexperienced users in the LaRosse piece). But one thing that caught my eye is that blog posts and discussion boards are not updated frequently. Some message board was not updated since March 2008 (see screenshot), and a lot of blog comments do not go beyond self-introduction.
But one resource that is current with substantial content is “Newsblogs” on topics related to archaeology and early history in Southeast Asia (see screenshot). The site is available from the archaeology-history group homepage and it does not require sign-up or login. Having read several newsblogs, I am finding this site quite resourceful and informative about Southeast Asian archaeology, if not nurturing creativity. For instance, I have just learned about a new website on ethnic populations in the region; a recent official dialogue between Thailand and Cambodia about the “smuggled artefacts” from Cambodia; current preservation projects in Burma etc. We don’t often get this kind of “raw data” from classroom readings. The coverage of the Newsblogs is broad, discussing most of eleven countries in the region, and the blog posts are updated almost daily and written professionally with relevant citations. I don’t know if other members have felt the same way, but if you get what you need by lurking, why bother blogging or even signing up for the facebook group...?
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Galston’s “voluntary community” is an interesting view of the reason behind the popularity of online groups, where connection and autonomy conflicts are “resolved.” For me, this seems to be a difficult thing to resolve because being an individual does separate you from groups in general. Is this where you feel that his notion of “voluntary community” is idealistic. I’m just wondering what specific things about his “voluntary community” you feel are idealistic, because I struggle with realizing his “voluntary community.” What are some of the consequences of online communication that you mention in the first paragraph? I believe that there could be more chances for misunderstandings with online communication, because of the lack of visual cues and immediate feedback.
ReplyDeleteThe “Life after social networking” section in the Albrechtslund article reinforced my worries about privacy. Because of the permanence of information on the Internet, I am always concerned about privacy and posting information on the Internet. Until laws are implemented to protect us from others using our “online histories” against us, I am always fearful about posting my personal thoughts on the Internet.
You bring up some interesting points with your thoughts on “usefulness” and “creativity.” What comes to my mind is “form versus function.” Some may say that a functional interface lacks creativity, but from a software engineering point of view, it takes ingenuity and creativity to come up with a functional and highly usable interface.
Yahoo Groups looks like a good place for research. I may use this for some of my other classes.
While I've definitely done my share of lurking on social sites, that falls into a bit of a gray area. Some people would call it 'legitimate peripheral participation' in the community, others would say active interaction is the point at which participation begins. Also debatable is the idea of how much the concept of a commons can be applied to a nondimensional space, like attention--nice that you picked up on that.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your summary of the Hague piece - I had great difficulty integrating it into the discussion of community, and was confused by the discussion of economics and commons. (I chose to avoid math and economics for a reason....) Do you think that the author actually proposes an alternate strategy towards creativity, or that he presents a solution to the problem he identified? That was my other difficulty with this piece.
ReplyDeleteYou also bring up a very interesting point about whether or not participation is necessary to be a member of a community. I think this is a particularly interesting question for us because we are attempting to study these communities as well as to engage in them. It's a fascinating puzzle, and I think that one could argue for Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle in this case - the simple fact of observing changes the experiment entirely. Can we ever trust our observations? ;) All philosophical seriousness aside, though, it does beg the question of quiet, non-participatory members of the community. How many people "lurk" in the background, merely observing but refraining from commenting? Does this provide a sense of community, or is it only through active participation in the community that we can be considered to be full members? Does this forbid shy / quiet / observing community members from being counted as members?
I like your doubt about Galston's idealistic voluntary community, but I think the downsides that you mention, mostly tied with some other readings, are consequences that stem from technology rather than Galston's 2 original thoughts regarding individual choice and longing for community (that was a rather long first sentence). For a social perspective, I believe those values still exist, which is why people still join SNSs, but also why those that do not explicitly state they have made a choice not to. The dangers in joining these communities, such as unknowingly making private information available to potential jobs, is a side effect of technology. For example, communities with shared interest still existed prior to the Internet; It was just more difficult to connect an individual to groups they belonged to without hiring a private investigator. Technology today offers "benefits" such as data persistence, which might help transcribers with logging conversations, but could be a hazard to someone trying to hide an embarrassing past. Yet it's a cycle that will continue to co-evolve. As users begin to learn about and understand these potential pitfalls, they will change their online behavior; Systems too, such as improved privacy settings in MySpace and Facebook, will adapt to prevent easy exploitation.
ReplyDeleteOne other thing I wanted to comment on is lurking. It is tough to both analyze lurker contribution (if any) and also what they gain (unless they actively acknowledge it). I don't really take a side on lurkers, except my opinion is that everyone will generally begin as a lurker, whether in an online or offline community. It is easier to remain hidden online, so there are probably more lurkers there, but how much one identifies with the community they lurk in can determine if they transition to a full participatory member in the future. At that point, any knowledge gained lurking can become immediately available back to the community itself, which would give value (in hindsight) to all the lurking done.