The Impact of Social Networking on Society

Anonymous Pingu writes "The latest edition of New Scientist has a series of features on social networking. These include an analysis of the impact on our social attitudes by Sherry Turkle, a feature on the possible privacy implications of using sites like MySpace and Friendster, and a short science fiction piece by Bruce Sterling. It's certainly interesting that so many people post very revealing stuff about themselves on these sites."

Had a feeling

"For some people, things move from "I have a feeling, I want to call a friend" to "I want to feel something, I need to make a call". . . "You can give media culture a positive spin and say that people are more socially enmeshed, but it has a darker side: as a feeling emerges, people share the feeling to see if they have the feeling."

I was thinking of sharing something about how the article seemed to confuse the act of verifying the existance of a feeling and sharing a feeling actually experienced with others in order to solicite validation, but then I thought about putting up with the modbots at /., and I experienced a feeling ( and I didn't need to check to see if I actually had the feeling, because I directly experienced that feeling) - nausea.

The Social Stigma

Interesting articles but I have a very basic question: Where do we get the social stigma associated with "meeting someone online"?

We're humans. We're a gregarious species. Whenever something arises that allows us to interact with people, it's usually a good thing. But tell your parents that you met someone online and you're dating them -- hell tell anyone -- that and more often than not, they'll disapprove.

Why? What causes this? Even the summary said it's amazing how much personal stuff people are willing to put online, isn't this a good thing if you're trying to get to know someone?

I've heard people say that only weird people are online and that you're taking serious risks ... but I've also seen percentages that show you're just as likely to meet a deviant at a bar as on MySpace or Friendster.

The only possible explanation I can find for this is the "it's different so it's wrong" approach a lot of people take to new things. I don't know if it's an ultra conservative viewpoint or just fear of the unknown that drives this social stigma against meeting people online.

Re:The Social Stigma

Interesting articles but I have a very basic question: Where do we get the social stigma associated with "meeting someone online"?

The Media. Let's face it: for as many positive stories you will find about the power of the Internet, you will find 5 times as many stories about things wrong with the Internet (phishing, privacy issues, child molesters, social repression, odd personal behavior, pornography, data loss, etc.). So "meeting someone online" carries the connotation that anyone you meet through some online medium must be tainted, somehow crazed or weird or just odd. When in fact, the subset of humanity we put in those categories is probably no greater on the Internet than it is in the global population.

Social networking is just an enhancement of your neighborhood, with global reach. And just like their may be "weirdoes" on your block you know nothing of, the same can be said of the Internet.

Re:The Social Stigma

I think it has to do with the role that computers have traditionally played in our lives. Traditionally, the "normal" people spend their leisure time going out and hanging out with their friends, while the pimply faced nerds sit at home all day and night on their computers chatting online.

As the Internet has become more mainstream, the stigma of meeting people online has faded significantly. These days, it's more of a curiosity than something that's looked down on. Although, meeting people on dating sites still has the same stigma (for now) as meeting people through the newspaper personal ads. But I think that's because many people consider those types of sites (or ads) as a last-ditch act of desperation for people who haven't been able to get a date any other way.

Re:The Social Stigma

The stigma of meeting people online comes from the few nut cases and preditors out there. On the Net, it is difficult to tell anything about the entities with whom you communicate. Is the entity who he says s/he is, is it really a bot, a 13-year old boy pretending to be a 25 year old girl, a sexual preditor pretending to be a 16 year old boy?

That being said, I do know people who have developed long term real-life relationships with people they met on the Net. My sister met the man whom whe married on Bitnet. When they met, she made sure it was in a public location.

It'll come back to haunt you if you're not careful

I know it's cliche to say that you shouldn't post very embrassing things about yourself online (employers don't like to read "hey, I get like... totally wasted and have drug-addled gay sex with my best friend every friday!"), but it is a problem. If you go for a sensitive position, they will do a background check and you can kiss getting a security clearance goodbye with half of what often gets put on these sites. Yes, just write off your ability to possibly get anything above a confidential clearance.

On the bright side, maybe we will end up either weeding out a whole lot of future potential politicians, or make things so open that "colorful people" can get into office. Works for me either way!

Very Interesting study

When you are able to physically distance yourself from the physical aspect of things (you know actually talking to someone), many people seem to be able to overcome their inhibitions. This is a positive thing for many people who for some reason or another have a diffucult time being themselves around others. Of course this distancing also has the power to bring out the idiot in many of us too (you know who you are)!!!
___________________________
Free iPods? Its legit [wired.com]. 5 of my friends got theirs. Get yours here! [freepay.com]

Text of Short Story

For those of you who don't want to register (even for free) to newscientist.com.

I Saw The Best Minds of My Generation Destroyed by Google
by Bruce Sterling

Los Angeles, 2026

Ted got busted because we do graffiti. Losing Ted was a big setback, as Ted was the only guy in our gang who knew how to steal aerosol spray cans. As potent instruments of teenage social networking, aerosol spray cans have "high abuse potential". So spray cans are among the many things us teenagers can't buy, like handguns, birth control, alcohol, cigarettes and music with curse words.

I tried hard to buy us another spray can. I'm a street poet, so really, I tried. I walked up to the mall-store register, disguised in my Dad's business jacket, with cash in hand. They're cheap, aerosol spray cans. Beautiful colours of paint, just screaming to get sprayed someplace public where everybody has to see what's on our minds. The store wouldn't sell me the can. The e-commerce system simply would not allow that transaction. The screen just went gray and stayed gray.

That creepy "differential permissioning" sure saves a lot of trouble for grown-ups. Increasing chunks of the world are just... magically off limits. It's a weird new regime where every mall and every school and every bus and train and jet is tagged and tracked and ambient and pervasive and ubiquitous and geolocative... Jesus, I love those words... Where was I?

Right. We teenagers have to live in "controlled spaces". Radio-frequency ID tags, real-time locative systems, global positioning systems, smart doorways, security videocams. They "protect" us kids, from imaginary satanic drug dealer terrorist mafia predators. We're "secured". We're juvenile delinquents with always-on cellphone nannies in our pockets. There's no way to turn them off. The internet was designed without an off-switch.

So my pal Ted, who stupidly loved to tag his own name on the walls, got sent to reform school, where the security is insanely great. Me, I had a much higher grade-point average than Ted, but with no handy Ted to steal spray cans, the words of the prophet have vanished from the subway walls. So much for my campaign to cover the town with graffiti street-stencils of my favourite teen pop stars: George Orwell and Aldous Huxley.

And Shakespeare. I used to hate Shakespeare, because the teachers would park us in front of the webcam terminals, turn on the Shakespeare lessons and leave the building. But then, somehow, they showed us Macbeth, a play which actually MEANS something to us. Grown-ups don't understand that (or they wouldn't be teaching it) but Macbeth is the true authentic story of my generation. This is Macbeth's world, and us teenagers just live in it. Dig this: those "Three Weird Sisters", who mysteriously know everything? They can foretell anything, instantly, like Google? Plus, the witches make it all sound really great - only, in real life, it totally sucks? Well, those "Three Weird Sisters" are the "Internet of Things", they're "Ubiquitous Computation", they're "Ambient Findability". The truth is written all over the page (or the screen - my school can't afford to give us any "pages"). Just read that awesome part where they're boiling pseudocode in their witch-cauldron! They talk like web designers! "The words of the prophet have vanished from the subway walls"

Macbeth stumbles around seeing ghosts and virtual-reality daggers. That sure makes sense. Every day of my life, I see people with cellphones yelling eerie gibberish in public. The world of Macbeth is totally haunted and paranoid! You can't get one minute's privacy, even inside your own bed!

So, I did my class report about Macbeth, and every kid in my English class instantly agreed with me. I'm not the most popular guy in school, but they started CHEERING me. And Debbie, this wacky Goth chick in my class who identifies with Lady Macbeth... After my class report, Debbie sleep-walked out of the classroom and pretended to hang herself! Of cour

Re:Text of Short Story

soulless internet replacing good ol' natural hobbies.

In your zeal to dismiss the story, you missed the point. It's not about the Internet "replacing" natural hobbies, it's about the ubiquitous and automated surveillance enabled by pervasive networking (not really what you're thinking of as "the Internet") destroying natural hobbies.

My personal phrase for it is inhuman justice [jerf.org]. I wrote that at least four years ago and it hasn't gotten any less true. Bruce here applies it particularly to teenagers, but you could take Bruce's implicit universe and write an equally angsty story about any number of adults.

It's all about avoiding isolation

Anything that has to do with 'online' and a people playing/working together has been for the most part sucessful.

Basic technology is a good example. At first it was the pagers that allowed you to know when someone wanted to talk to you. And when you friend got a page it was 'I NEED A PHONE! QUICK! SOMEONE NEEDS TO GET AHOLD OF ME!'. Then cellphones came along and now you can talk to anyone from anywhere. Now a days, its hard to find someone who doesnt have a cell phone. Everyone wants to be connected to everyone else.

Its also hard to find someone who doesnt have AIM/MSN/GTALK(or gchat? i forget)/irc/any other social thing to get ahold of them.

MMO's have taken off like crazy. And ever since quake1 came out, you were a fool not to include multiplayer.

No one likes being by themselves. They like companionship. They like someone else being there with them.

It's not that surprising

I'm one of those people who wishes I could throw all my personal information out there for people to look at and either admire or ignore. I could care less what people think of me, but the problem is that then people judge me and change how they treat me based on this information. People are constantly judging, and they are judging based off of thousands of criteria, most of which don't have a real impact on how one would deal with me. Be nice, be fair, don't bigoted against me, judge the issue at hand with the facts I have laid out, and we'll get along great.

I understand that to get through the world you have to play the politics game, learn how to schmooze people, and keep the private things private. I'm just sick and tired of it. Most of the people who post this information I think are similar in this regard. I want to tell the world about me, but I don't want to be judged, I just want to be seen for who I am.

But other people aren't that way, and most of us "blunt" type people have to learn the hard way that the rest of society judges us, and the judge us on all the wrong things. That's what happens, you post some personal information, describe yourself, and things go well when people you want to see you see you, but then when a bunch of people you don't know see you, and you find out these people are important to your job, that's when stupid shit starts to happen and you learn that it wasn't as smart as you thought.

Basically people treat the internet like a social club or a singles bar. They have to realize that it's the world... the entire world... who can see who you are. And that's the part that sucks, that not everyone thinks like you, and you have to get smart and take your page down or severely limit your posted information.

Anachronism, FUD

FTA:
What kind of responsibility are they ducking?

Summer 2006 finds the world enmeshed in multiple wars and genocidal campaigns. It finds the world incapable of calling a halt to environmental destruction. Yet, with all of this, people seem above all to be fascinated by novel technologies. On college campuses there is less interest in asking questions about the state of the world than in refining one's presence on Facebook or MySpace. Technology pundits may talk in glowing terms about new forms of social life, but the jury is out on whether virtual self-expression will translate into collective action.

Ok, that's bullshit. First off it is not true: look at the rise of Netroots (in politics, in activism, in terrorism) and all of that sort of action that disproves her very own observation. People are using online communities to get involved (for good or ill). Of course if you narrow your focus down like she does to just Facebook and Myspace (two sites designed for fulltime student aged demographics) *shock* people are just using them for social networking.

Second, her statement has the implication that in the great golden times before Teh Intarnetz that people where autonomous self-actualized ubermensch that got involved all the time with important social issues and where immune to peer pressure. That's pure BS. For all the supposed young folk getting active in the 60's, a good part of them took getting active to mean as a way to pick up chicks. Joni Mitchell talked about how all the talk of free love was just a scam. That's no different than it is now. Your average college kid is thinking of two things on a Thursday night: how to get drunk and how to get laid. That hasn't changed in forty years. And the author ignores the fact that the US population was mostly positive about Vietnam and it took the draft for most Americans to finally have a stake and for the tide to turn against that war. It wasn't due to folks now caving to instant peer pressure. The term Silent Majority was coined in that very era.

This article has all the makings of Media Studies masturbation: it has no social, historical, psychological or political context. It just has posed hypothetical examples and a lot of incestuous jargon. It does not approach it's own biases with skepticism or try to study the issue from an antithetical perspective (e.g. "Maybe social networking has no effect"). Colbert would call this East Coast Ivy League crap. And this is exactly the sort of thing you could break out in a party when trying to siddle up to some young filly. "Girl, we're so alone in this darkness... here, put your head in my lap."

Crap

Summer 2006 finds the world enmeshed in multiple wars and genocidal campaigns. It finds the world incapable of calling a halt to environmental destruction. Yet, with all of this, people seem above all to be fascinated by novel technologies. On college campuses there is less interest in asking questions about the state of the world than in refining one's presence on Facebook or MySpace. Technology pundits may talk in glowing terms about new forms of social life, but the jury is out on whether virtual self-expression will translate into collective action.

They have to be kidding... as if the world suddenly became a nasty place when the cellphone was invented. On Easter Island, they cut down all of their own trees... they must have been too "fascinated by novel technologies" to stop damaging their environment. The world didn't immediately stop Hitler because we were all busy chatting on our cell phones. This person needs a history lesson and some perspective. When I was in college we didn't care about the world because we were drinking beer, playing video games, and trying to get laid. I know that this woman is smart and has done some great research, but she really needs to get a grip.

All i know is

I've found my new sig.

My Mom's a Welfare Elf Queen

Social Networking needs to stop being "cool"

If I've said it once, I've said it a million times: One of the biggest things holding social networking back is that people still have this conception of it that is very reminiscent of a 1996 Wired Magazine article. That it's all very cool and hip and revolutionary.

Social networking isn't gonna get anywhere until people everywhere see it as a basic tool, no more, no less. You don't see kids bragging about their email address, do you? Why are teenagers acting the fool [myspace.com] over the fact that they have a myspace?

I've been working on a distributed social networking software called Appleseed (at Sourceforge [sourceforge.net], and a test site at Appleseedproject.org [appleseedproject.org]. The idea is to distribute social networking across an infinite number of sites, all of which can communicate with each other flawlessly. Basically, taking the decentralized theory of the internet, and applying it to social networking software.

One of the effects I think this will have, is that a lot of people will join social networking sites who might be normally turned off by a monolothic cesspool such as MySpace. Ridiculous hipsters can have their site, and people who don't suck could have their own site, and someone who doesn't suck could still maintain a relationship with their hipster "friend" so that they can hear where the parties are without having to wear girls jeans and have a haircut [llnwd.net] that proves [llnwd.net] that the world has no sense [llnwd.net] of decency [llnwd.net].

Yes, this means that your uncle and your mom and your cousin and even maybe your grandparents are gonna be do the whole social networking thing. Luckily, Appleseed has a lot of privacy options, so you can hide your BDSM Leninist Reading Group from your family.

One of the effects of the "uncooling" of social networking, I think, will be that people recognize that you're not hanging out at 80's night at the local club, or chilling with your friends at a private party. You're broadcasting your life to the whole damn world. Once I think people realize that, I think the absurd and abnormal social habits that social networking creates are going to quickly disappear.

At the very least, I sincerely hope so.

Asynchronous Discourse

Electronic text has a propensity for inviting asynchronous discourse. Because it is posted, sent, and retrieved by the other at his or her leisure, the personal involvement with messages is lessened: it makes the earliest parts of a romantic relationship easier because the agony of "should I call" disappears when you can send a text message or an e-mail without wondering if "the roommate" or "the parent" will pick up. The recipient has the option to respond at his or her leisure, which creates a longer gap - and lessens the personal involvement - between acceptance or refusal. When such technology becomes ubiquitous - and I think we can agree that it has - it is bound to change the ways in which we communicate with one another. (Disclaimer - this is my field of research)

Well...

I'm an online social hermit.

My facebook account has 20 friends globally. I know met all but 2 of them face to face, and those 2 i have had long running philisophical debates with.

I would rate myself as a mildy attractive, guy. I stay in shape and i brush my teeth. I tended to get 10 to 15 friend requests a week from people i never met, who couldn't be bothered to even attach a "Hi" message. Occasionally some of them were the "hey wanna hook up?". Most of which I denied and at one point it really pissed of some folks who tried repeatedly.

I found it really funny that once i removed an actual picture of myself on face book, they few little hey want to be my friend things went down to maybe 1 or 2 a week and suddenly they were accompanied by friendly and intelligent messages. Some of these people are now really close friends.

i think the stigma comes from the percieved quality of the friend, most of them seem to be just seem to be another name on the friends list. i know some people who only feel good if they get a friend invite, my roomate gets like that sometimes, facebook becomes the center of his social life to the point where he doesn't leave the room to socialize, he just uses facebook.

No. No, it isn't.

It's certainly interesting that so many people post very revealing stuff about themselves on these sites.


No, that's not interesting.

The 'revealing stuff' they post isn't interesting; it would only be interesting if it represented extremes of behavior or threw light on fascinating personalities or great events.

The fact that they post it isn't interesting either; it would only be interesting if there was some good reason for them not to post, or if there was something else they could be doing instead.

'Dull people talk about themselves.' Not news. Sorry.

If anything, it's interesting that they choose to make their pages so ugly. That really is pretty interesting; you'd think that because they attach importance to the details of their own lives, they'd ask themselves 'how can I make this crap (and thus myself) look attractive? how can I make this crap (and thus myself) seem important?' But they don't. That's mildly interesting.

Social Networking of benefit to Big Brother

I had an idea that social networking information might be highly valuable to corrupt governments. With some social networking data about each citizen, and a draconian Digital restrictions Management scheme, democracy can be laid to rest once and for all. Elections can be held in which every citizen can verify their own vote in a published list -- yet the final result of the election was decided before a ballot was cast.

Why post-election verifiability is meaningless
or, how even an open ballot can be subverted

A government already in power is in the ideal position to subvert an election even where every registered voter votes (zero abstentions), even in spite of receipts and even in spite of the existence of a published list of everyone's name, address and who voted for whom (hereinafter The Big List). The Big List is -- or at least will be spun as being -- highly sensitive information. There won't be any paper copies anywhere, in case they get stolen by foreign terrorists or direct marketers. You will be grudgingly allowed to look at it, strictly for the purpose of verifying that your own vote is correct. Don't expect for a second that it won't be protected by Digital Restrictions Management: you won't be able to print or save it without violating the EUCD or US DMCA. Anyway, possession of a hard copy could be made a separate offence in its own right (since it might be used to discriminate against people in illegal ways; also, it's information that might be useful to terrorists, or some such).

All it would take is (1) for The Big List to be made available only online, with Digital Restrictions Management technology, and accessible only via the use of a personal "security code" in order to "ensure that sensitive information is not misused"; and (2) for a combination of intrusive and less-intrusive surveillance measures to be used to determine everyone's Social Network (i.e. who their friends, relations and work colleagues are).

Run the election as normal and count the votes fairly. If your chosen candidate wins, stop right now. If anyone else wins, you need to adjust the figures just enough to create a favourable result which incorporates a sufficient majority to be unlikely to be challenged.

Now, when a voter logs on to see the results, they see a subtly altered version of The Big List. Their own vote is rendered accurately, as are the votes of everyone in their Social Network. The only votes altered are those of people outside the visitor's Social Network.

In other words, I might log in to see The Big List and see that my ex-coal-miner grandad voted for Labour (the winners), my posh aunt voted Conservative (the party who actually polled the most votes), and that dippy tart with the blue hair who lives in my street voted for the Green party -- exactly as I would have expected. To make the figures fit, a lot of Conservative votes will have to be changed to Labour votes. But on the version of the record that I am seeing -- and remember, they know it's me seeing it because of my personal security code -- all the changed votes came from people who, according to the Social Networks database, are strangers to me. Someone else might very likely log in and see my aunt as having voted Labour; but not if, according to the Social Networks database, they know me or her.

If a friend is with me when I check my vote, they will see their vote recorded correctly -- unless The Authorities don't know of our friendship and their vote happens to be one of the ones that get altered. Still, when they get home and check it on their own computer, it will show up right. If they call The Authorities and make it successfully through the "press one if ....., press two if ....." menus, they will be asked for their details, told the correct vote and that my computer must have been faulty, and probably believe that. If they later check on another friend's computer, and that other friend is properly listed as a k

It all depends on who is socialising

When people with even some sense in their heads interact on social networking sites, they understand the risks, the significance of posting private information on the net and that many a times the strangers they are talking to may not be the way they are presenting themselves.
Dumb people on the other hand just want to be part of a social network because so many others are. Just keep following the herd and you wont be left out. They dont care what they are posting about, all they care is for some chicks to reply to them so they can then brag silly in front of their friends.

But there are surely some good sites out there. Not everything sucks. For eg: i am a member of a site called Grupus.com [grupus.com] which lets me talk privately with my best friends, the ones i really know well, using small groups. Sure the site's look appears crappy, they dont seem to have hired a designer, but it functions great. and thats enough for me.

Effects of social networking?

Social networking has nothing but wonderful effects. Now what was that thing called "society" we're talking about?

Adding to the downfall of this generation

What happened to wanting to ACTUALLY be around people? The teen-faux-angsters are DYING to be seen, heard and listened to - yet they choose the WORST POSSIBLE medium to do it.

This shouldn't be rewarded. It should be punished. For anyone over the age of 12, do you recall what REAL socializing used to be? You and your buddies would kick it at one of your houses on the weekend, crammed around the Colecovision, playing TOGETHER, waiting for SNL to come on so you could fall asleep during the musical number? Remember what it was like to actually talk smack without having a headset on? Still know those people? Are they still your friends? What's the longest friendship you've had? I'm 37, and I have a friend of 24 years. Wonder what the average "friendship" expectancy is over MySpace? Doesn't matter - there are 18 million other people dying to bump their friend count by adding you.

Just as with everything else, this generation has created YET ANOTHER disposable product; friendship. MySpace and it's ilk have CHEAPENED friendship and turned it into another mass-market, easily tossed commodity with zero expectations of longetivity or nostalgia value. "Something given has no value" and the most valuable items come through rarity, hard work and sacrifice. How many REAL relationships can one person expect to maintain with any sort of value? What rarity, sacrifice or hard work does it take to "make friends" at MySpace? What REAL value do you take away from it later in life? MySpace is the little bird tattoo on your boob that sounds like a good idea when you're too dumb to realize in 20 years, your sagging breasts will turn that bird into something out of an H.R. Geiger. "Gee, I had 367 friends on MySpace when I was 13, now that I'm 20, I have no friends to hang out with on Saturday night".

I swear to Christ I'm going to make black T-Shirts that bare the phrase 'I'm stalking your daughter on MySpace' and wear them around. Or maybe 'I'm the dude your daughter met on MySpace'. I'm certainly no prize to look at - old, fat, receeding hair line. Maybe these shirts will wake some parents up and they will start doing a little parenting and keep their teens off these obvious "stalker centrals". Don't give me any crap about how you're just as likely to meet a stalker at a bar as you will on MySpace. I can't believe anyone can believe such tripe. It is a simple matter of numbers and audience. Where do pedophiles hang out? They ain't hanging out at bars. Or singles clubs. They are sitting outside your daughter's high school RIGHT NOW. If you're car shopping, you don't go to Wal-mart, right? And if you were going car shopping, do you go to the little local lot in the middle of nowhere where they have 10-20 cars in stock, or do you cruise the "auto mile" where there are THOUSANDS of cars of every make and model waiting to be test driven? If *I* wanted to stalk underage girls, MySpace would be my FIRST stop (and guess what - my ONLY stop ... the veritable Wal-mart Super Store for the sexually demented). Gee, difficult math.

Danger aside, I'm disgusted by disposability. Music, film, video games - and now friends - have all been demoted to the shortest half-life possible. I weep for the future.

Exhibitionism and Self-Esteem

People tossing all sorts of revealing information up on these sites is not too surprising. It's the ultimate platform for exhibitionism and validation: toss up photos, "clever" profiles, and personal anecdotes and receive instant gratification from friends and strangers. If people respond negatively, its simply enough to pull down the photo/profile/story and delete the negative comments.. clean the slate.

A big part of socialization is about receiving a self-esteem boost and these sites provide an easy, relatively risk-free way of doing so.

And what have we learned, Dorothy?

1) The Internet is a Bad Place - but we've been told this since the virtual world was made up of BBSs and FidoNet.
2) People are afraid of new things - basic marketing 101
3) No one wants to broadcast their real self to the world - see story of Adam and Eve.

Is there anything new here?

Moo

It's certainly interesting that so many people post very revealing stuff about themselves on these sites

Like the same information they'd tell you if you just asked them?

Re:Wow, That was Bad, Really Bad

It's like reading a 60's icon critiquing the year 2006, complaining it's not "hippie" enough. . .

And yet empirical evidence suggests that you like my posts well enough. :)

KFG

Re:Wow, That was Bad, Really Bad

I agree - that "short story" was absolutely terrible. I have no idea what he is talking about, with kids hating technology.

Did the moderator who assigned "troll" to this comment RTFA? I doubt it.