reflection on w1 reading “public displays of connection”
I’ve always wondered why people have such a desire to exhibit themselves and their very personal anecdotes online for everyone to see. Some experts say people don’t fully understand the power of the Internet as yet and quite often get themselves exposed (some in an active manner) online without much consideration of the possible consequences.
Here are some quotes from J Donath and d boyd’s article in week 1:
-people are accustomed to thinking of the online world as a social space.
-the social networking sites discussed in the reading are according to the author, a product of the emerging culture – cultural products
- social networking sites are online environments in which people create a self-descriptive profile and then make links to other people they know on the site, creating a network of personal connections.
- why do people display their social connections in everyday life – and why do they do so in these networking sites?
- how does this display facilitate connections, and how does it change the costs and benefits of making and brokering such connections as opposed to doing so via traditional means?
-the features of the links in the displays of connection – that are public, mutual, unnuanced, and decontextualised – shape the culture that is evolving on these sites.
- instead, we rely on signals, which are more or less reliably correlated with an underlying quality
- for example, driving an expensive car is a signal of wealth, for to own such a car is quite costly in the domain being signaled, in this case money.
- here, the cost of being deceived can be quite high, and it is worthwhile for people to assume and demand greater costs in order to be more confident in their belief in the other’s identity.
- in theory, the public display of connections found on networking sites should ensure honest self-presentation because one’s connections are linked to one’s profile; they have both seen it and, implicitly, sanctioned it.
- if the people on someone’s display of connections do not know the subject in real life, they have no way to verify the profile – they, like the receiver, know on the online presentation and thus they do not add new information.
- by paying the cost of carefully crafting an interesting profile one can make more connections
- identity is faceted; we have different interests, beliefs, traits, etc, and share different ones with different people.
- the type of information that flows through a tie, whether about the person or about the world at large, depends on the focus that brought them together and on the shared facets of their identity.
- other claims in the profile may be untrue, yet unquestioned by friends and colleagues, who may simply assume this is an aspect of their acquaintance about which they do not know
- as an environment for performative expression.
- as a signal of the author’s dry humour.
- identity theft – the public display of connections can help verify that you are who you say you are. but it can also help someone else establish that they are you, too.
- a public display of connections, listed along with contact information, arguably provides all viewers of one’s network site profile with a virtual set of mutual acquaintances.
-knowing that everyone they interact with know of and can communicate with a group of their acquaintances can influence their behaviour. The public display of connections places them in a still virtual, but now public, space.
- the signalling value of detailed social network information will decline. But that decline will only occur because the signal loses value through repeated deceptive use.
- by making all of one’s connections visible to all the others, social networking sites remove the privacy barriers that people keep between different aspects of their lives.
- one solution for the uncomfortable mixing of too heterogeneous a set of connections is for the sites themselves to be well-defined and limited contexts, places with a clear set of situation rules. Linkedin does this by emphasizing the business focus. The profiles are limited to material that is appropriate in a business setting and every aspect of the interface encourages a relatively impersonal style of interaction. Such an approach is less likely to be successful in the social sites, however.
- does sending a mass e-mail to all of them in any way substitute for that bonding experience?
- it implies that the technologies that expand one’s social network will primarily result is an increase in available information and opportunities – the benefits of a large, heterogeneous network
- being the bridge between two otherwise disconnected people or groups is a strategically important role, particularly if there is valuable information or opportunities to be shared between them.
- most of the networking sites so far are designed to grow networks, not limit them. Yet costs and limits can add value.
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