In Saturday's (03/28/09) edition there were two articles that could be of interest to anyone working on social networking sites.
The first was an entertaining editorial by Josh Freed "Your world's a stage on Google street view". It is helpful because he discusses the differences between the generation of our "parents" versus "the transparent" generation. It helped me understand my reluctance a bit more as he continued on to describe how the younger generation has no problem putting all of their business out in the open in comparison to the older generation. Maybe I am just an old soul... The premise of the article is about the expansion of google's services and that Montreal streets can now be seen as well. In any case the editorial is quite funny and definitely worth the read.
The second article can be found in the Weekend Life section's front page. It is by Susan Schwartz and is called "Facebook vultures". It is a great source and as well worth the read. What I appreciated from it is there is a bit about the celebrity nature of these sites. So maybe I wasn't so off...suspecting that these sites create the type of environment that allows us to feel like a celebrity. On second thought maybe I need not reassess my original research question but maybe to just add on the impact of our self centered culture and wanting to be famous...uhm so maybe there is a budding sociologist in me ;)
Here's a link to the article- http://www.montrealgazette.com/Life/Facebook+vultures/1437860/story.html If for whatever reason you cannot get to it go to www.montrealgazette.com and type in the search box: A "friend" indeed.
While on the Gazette site I saw a link to another article on how Twitter helped a man get a mortgage. It was a great article proving the impact of social media. Here's a link to that one too for those that are interested http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/money/story/0,26844,25261841-5015825,00.html.
Well until next time....
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Focus of research
I plan on doing my research on the way people present themselves on social networking sites. I plan on using Facebook as the chosen location of my research, not for any particular reason but more for practical reasons I have a Facebook account. I used to have a Hi5 account that one of my friends who I kindly nicknamed my webmaster took care of. She updated my profile, added pictures and so forth. I would just respond to people, send messages and accept friends. But I digress…back to my research, I will use Irving Goffman's book "The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life" as a framework and compare the manner in which people present themselves on SNS to his theories. Additionally, I would like to try and assess whether the manner people present themselves on social networking sites reflects a culture obsessed with becoming famous. I might have to rework or rethink that last part. I have been thinking that maybe I would like to reformulate that second part and assessing whether social networking sites are as popular as they are because we area culture obsessed with ourselves. Or maybe I will look at both. I guess it comes down to what kind of literature I can find to substantiate my theories.
Vanity…I think it is pretty relevant to where we are in society right now. I mean reality tv is the norm now, could we get any more self involved. I think the fact that reality tv dominates the networks speaks volumes about where we are in society. I mean a profile of oneself is quite vain. Many like to think of it as their way of allowing others to know about them. Granted, sometimes this is really helpful and informative about a friend. I mean the info people include on their profiles sometimes allow you to know things about someone you’ve known for years but never knew about them. I suspect this coincides nicely with the idea that we have multiple personalities and depending on the situation we present different parts of ourselves. We do not act the way we do with our friends as we do with our professors for instance. What I find fascinating about sites such as Facebook is the manner in which we are forced to negotiate all of our multiple identities. I know for myself my “friends” on Facebook ranges from work colleagues to friends from elementary school. Fortunately, I am not too active on my Facebook profile so the negotiation is not too difficult because I use abstinence as my way to deal with this potential negotiation.
Which brings up the “friends” issue. It can be considered socially inappropriate to reject someone. The problem with accepting everyone you know is you run the risk of having all of your friends and acquaintances all together on one site forcing you to attempt to negotiate all of your different “personalities”. This can definitely be tricky to maneuver. Which personality will dominate your profile? Is your mother going to approve of your profile? Your best friend? Your boyfriend? Your friends obviously know what you look like….it would be one thing if people were only making new friends on SNS but we all know that the vast majority of our “friends” on these sites are people we know. So maybe we don’t want to be famous but we have become so vain that we act as if we are famous. I mean my discomfort with writing a blog is quite unwarranted. I mean who am I to attract a following of any nature, beyond the scope of this course. My writing skills are decent but not Pulitzer prize worthy. Who’s really going to steal my intellectual property…my fellow classmates? Of course not. That is absurd (don’t worry fellow classmates….I know you will not steal my thoughts…they are way too ambiguous to steal and presently quite a mess!)
Speaking of my discomfort I think it all comes down to....
Social awkwardness: I think I am socially akward online! I find it so ironic, this discomfort I have with the internet and online "stuff". I am quite sociable. It is definitely one of my strengths my ability to handle social situation. I like interactions with others...so why does this make me so uncomfortable? Maybe it is that in "real life" when interacting with others, I can see their face, I can see their body language, I can feel their presence- their interest of disinterest whereas online I have no sense of these elements that I rely on so heavily on to be able to effectively interact with others. I think it is the other side of the social interaction that I have always taken for granted because I am usually good with people. It's funny though because I like to observe how others act and see what makes them awkward whereas here I am online feeling very awkward. I am really happy that this is not in person because I am sweaty and nervous! (http://www.neurology.org/cgi/content/full/65/10/E20- I think the beginning of this article is quite relevant if you'd like to read a bit more on social awkwardness)
I bring all of this up because in having to attempt to objectively observe my own actions and reactions online I feel it will make me a better researcher in my attempts to try and get a feel of the profiles I will be observing and analyzing.
Okay well that’s all for now. Till next time…..
Vanity…I think it is pretty relevant to where we are in society right now. I mean reality tv is the norm now, could we get any more self involved. I think the fact that reality tv dominates the networks speaks volumes about where we are in society. I mean a profile of oneself is quite vain. Many like to think of it as their way of allowing others to know about them. Granted, sometimes this is really helpful and informative about a friend. I mean the info people include on their profiles sometimes allow you to know things about someone you’ve known for years but never knew about them. I suspect this coincides nicely with the idea that we have multiple personalities and depending on the situation we present different parts of ourselves. We do not act the way we do with our friends as we do with our professors for instance. What I find fascinating about sites such as Facebook is the manner in which we are forced to negotiate all of our multiple identities. I know for myself my “friends” on Facebook ranges from work colleagues to friends from elementary school. Fortunately, I am not too active on my Facebook profile so the negotiation is not too difficult because I use abstinence as my way to deal with this potential negotiation.
Which brings up the “friends” issue. It can be considered socially inappropriate to reject someone. The problem with accepting everyone you know is you run the risk of having all of your friends and acquaintances all together on one site forcing you to attempt to negotiate all of your different “personalities”. This can definitely be tricky to maneuver. Which personality will dominate your profile? Is your mother going to approve of your profile? Your best friend? Your boyfriend? Your friends obviously know what you look like….it would be one thing if people were only making new friends on SNS but we all know that the vast majority of our “friends” on these sites are people we know. So maybe we don’t want to be famous but we have become so vain that we act as if we are famous. I mean my discomfort with writing a blog is quite unwarranted. I mean who am I to attract a following of any nature, beyond the scope of this course. My writing skills are decent but not Pulitzer prize worthy. Who’s really going to steal my intellectual property…my fellow classmates? Of course not. That is absurd (don’t worry fellow classmates….I know you will not steal my thoughts…they are way too ambiguous to steal and presently quite a mess!)
Speaking of my discomfort I think it all comes down to....
Social awkwardness: I think I am socially akward online! I find it so ironic, this discomfort I have with the internet and online "stuff". I am quite sociable. It is definitely one of my strengths my ability to handle social situation. I like interactions with others...so why does this make me so uncomfortable? Maybe it is that in "real life" when interacting with others, I can see their face, I can see their body language, I can feel their presence- their interest of disinterest whereas online I have no sense of these elements that I rely on so heavily on to be able to effectively interact with others. I think it is the other side of the social interaction that I have always taken for granted because I am usually good with people. It's funny though because I like to observe how others act and see what makes them awkward whereas here I am online feeling very awkward. I am really happy that this is not in person because I am sweaty and nervous! (http://www.neurology.org/cgi/content/full/65/10/E20- I think the beginning of this article is quite relevant if you'd like to read a bit more on social awkwardness)
I bring all of this up because in having to attempt to objectively observe my own actions and reactions online I feel it will make me a better researcher in my attempts to try and get a feel of the profiles I will be observing and analyzing.
Okay well that’s all for now. Till next time…..
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Blogging...blogging...blogging....uhm I don't know how I feel about this. I guess I am a bit of a techno phobe. (For those who are on the other end of the spectrum and are techno embracing...here's a general idea of where I am coming from) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technophobia This was definetely fun to read, I guess I am not that bad. But I am old fashioned in my ways and have been writing a research journal à la pen and paper instead of just blogging as many of my classmates have been doing. I guess it is about time I try and get with the times.It just makes me so uncomfortable...I mean anyone and everyone can see what I have been up to and doing....ugh....Imean my intellectual property can be violated...I don't know but I guess since my journal will not be graded and my blog will be I guess as reluctant as I feel I must get to blogging. But I will make it clear I have my reservations about this. We will see how it goes. I make no promises. Do not expect Academy Award worthy blogs here. If you came looking for that you might want to click elsewhere. So here goes....until next time....
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