Edward Googins
Sociology 022 – In the Facebook Age – Spring 2010 – Dhiraj Murthy

Maybe you have heard the phrase, “once you put something on the internet, its their forever.”  I have always thought took this to be an exaggeration, but a guideline to follow.  Don’t put something online and expect it to disappear after a certain length of time.  For this reason I found the section on Surveillance very interesting.  This section associated loss of liberties with surveillance.  For example, the section talked about anxiety about e-mail record retention, transactional information, and Michael Foucult emphasized that knowledge and power are always conjoined.  Personally, due to the expression, “once you put something on the internet, its their forever,” e-mail retention doesn’t effect me.  I always took it as a given that an e-mail could come back at any time.  This also made me wonder what these enthusiasts are hiding.  Personally, I’m of the opinion of if you have nothing to hide, it shouldn’t matter some one is watching.  I’d rather have increased surveillance, which also means increased protection, than suffer another 9/11 because people didn’t want their e-mails to their parents intercepted.  To me, the risk is enough. I agree that knowledge and power are linked together, but just because an e-mail is being searched automatically by a program for certain key words doesn’t mean your innermost secrets will be revealed to the world.  As long as proper precautions are taken to limit access to the majority, everything should be fine.  It is this mindset that made the following chapter very interesting.

Chapter 20 was dedicated to the Panopticon, a building design that would allow for all inhabitants to be viewed without knowing if the are being watched from a central tower.  This tower would be accessible to anyone in society.  In this way society would monitor surveillance.  I particularly enjoyed the comparison, saying the cells were like small theaters, implying that peoples lives are a show for other people to watch.  The key points the Panopticon stressed were that power should be visible and unverifiable.  People should always know that there is a chance they are being watched, and they should know if they are under surveillance or not.  In this way, people would be scared they would be caught misbehaving, and good behavior would ensue.  I found this very interesting because it countered everything the previous article said.  IT implied that privacy was a privilege not a right, and that the risk of surveillance was enough to encourage good behavior.  I found this an interesting juxtaposition to the previous chapter.

The Jones reading was interesting not only from a sociological perspective, but from the perspective of a user.  Since I have a Facebook account, it was interesting to see how other people used the website.  One thing I found interesting was the idea that newer users to Facebook share more than older users.  You might think that as users become more familiar with the website, they would trust it a little more.  Instead the inexperienced users seem to have higher expectations on how others use the website and apparently overcompensate.  I also found it interesting that users knew about privacy features, but oftentimes chose not to use them.  A lack of privacy was not a lack of knowledge, it was a choice.  I also enjoyed the point that as facebook becomes more popular, its security will be forced to decrease as more people have access to more information.  Finally, the last interesting portion of facebook was the idea that friending only people you know was actually a security feature.  People are less likely to be able to steal information if you only friend people you know from the real world, rather than being tricked by bots.

I found the readings for this week very interesting.  I’ll start with an overview of how Pippa Norris describes the Digital Divide.  Norris says the digital divide has three distinct parts.  There is a digital divide, a social divide, and a democratic divide.  The global divide refers to a difference in internet access between industrial countries and developing countries.  For example, countries like the United States of America have many more people connected to the internet than third world countries, primarily due to technological differences.  The Social Divide refers to the gap between information rich and information poor  communities within a nation.  Essentially the social divide points out that people throughout the same country still have different amounts of access to the internet and the information it holds.  The democratic divide references the gap between people using the internet to engage, mobilize, and participate in public life.

“Metcalfs law suggests that the value of a network is proportional to the square number of people using it.  The more people link to the Internet, the greater its utility, the more people it attracts.”  I found this really cool since Metcalfs law means that the utility of the Internet is greatest when everyone has a part of it.  This defies most economic models since instead of being a constrained resource, the more people who have a part of it, the better!!!

Another interesting quote in the Norris reading was “most poorer societies, lagging far behind… may join the digital world decades later and, in the long term, may ultimately fail to catch up.”  I really found this quote interesting since it shows how important information equality really is.  Lack of information not only effects current economic situation, but it inhibits possible growth.  IT only stands to reason that at some point, the lack of growth could put a nation at such a disadvantage that it would be impossible to become competitive.

The final interesting quote that I found in the reading from Norris was “Technological opportunities are often highly unevenly distributed.”  This made me wonder why they would be unevenly distributed, and I realized the more access some one has to the internet and information, the more informed on current events they will be, and the more likely resources will be allocated to those people already involved in the system.  Its like a big snowball, rolling down a hill.  The more connected you are, the more information and wealth you can acquire at faster and faster rates.

Just saw the beginning of the show:  WTF just happened?  Clearly this episode is off to a great start.

I’m just going to keep a running list of interesting quotes.

-They say that privacy is a modern invention, towns used to be too small for people to keep secrets.

-When people are left to their own devices people make poor choices.

-”I’m updating my blog,” woman in the same room “And I’m reading it.”

-”You can’t convey a tone of voice in writing.”

-”I think people behave badly because nobody has a record of it.”

-”There is nothing she doesn’t share.”

-”An hour after she posted her blog post a reader in Sydney asked how hard it would be too donate a kidney.”

-”But I do know them.  They comment on my blog, I read theirs.  Just because you don’t know some one pysically doesn’t mean you don’t know them.”

-”Sometimes its easier to open up to people who aren’t looking at you.”

-”You really think that asking readers for some top of the head answer is going to be helpful right now?”

-”If I start picking and choosing [what I write on my blog] I’m being dishonest.”

-”No one has to be alone again. However you are wherever you are you can find some one to connect to. .. This thing that you do.. is a performance.  You have turned our lives into their entertainment.”

-”I hate that you don’t have a blog.  I hate that I don’t know what your thinking.”

-”We all need secrets.  As long as they don’t kill us they keep us safe and warm.”

-”I know you’ll go crazy if ou don’t tell people”

-”Do you think people can know each other better on the internet than face to face.”

-”Your alone, you’ve been alone your whole life… you wanted what everyone else wants, to look across the gulf and find some one looking back.”

When I heard of our assignment to delete facebook friends for class I got very excited.  Maybe it is my playful nature, but I saw this as a perfect opportunity to mess with my friends.  Because of this, I think I approached this assignment slightly differently than most of my classmates.  Rather than searching through my list of friends and deleting people I no longer wanted to be friends with, I went through and deleted some of my closest friends.  I didn’t really know what to expect from this, I guess that I assumed life would go on like normal and as my friends wanted to contact me they would realize I was no longer friends with them they would add me as a friend as laugh it off as a bug in facebooks programming.  This is not what happened…

Instead I got a rush of friend requests within three days from half of the people I had de-friended.  I also got a message from one friend who asked why I had de-friended her and if I was mad at her.  I didn’t expect anyone to pick up on my betrayal so quickly, especially since they don’t get a notification when I de-friend them.  I definitely didn’t think anyone would be offended and apologized sincerely.

It was only once I had apologized for deleting her that I realized the real reason I had deleted my closest friends instead of people I don’t talk to.  I didn’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings.  I was afraid that if I deleted somebody from my friend list who I wasn’t that close to but still knew they would be offended and wouldn’t want to re add me as a friend if they wanted to at some point.  As a kid my biggest fear was always that I would exclude some one, and I guess that fear is still present.  By deleting my closer friends, I was confident they would pass it off as some strange error and re-friend me.  My closer friends would realize it was a joke.  It turns out one of my high school friends was hurt by my de friending which makes me wonder how people I’m de friending on purpose would feel.  I have kept my friendship list small since I friend rarely and have no problem rejecting friend requests if I don’t want to. However all people I might want to delete are already in a special list I have with its own privacy restrictions.  There would be no benefit to me to delete them.  The only result of my actions would be the possibility to hurt their feelings, so why would I want to delete them?

So here is an account of how my final editing for my paper is going…

I have been working on my paper since 2:00, so roughly for two and a half hours.  Like most college students, as I worked diligently on my paper I also listened to music.  My music of choice nowadays is mashups.  For those of you who don’t know, mashups are songs created by mixing together parts of other songs to create one huge mix.  The result is disastrous if performed by amateurs, so I only listen to the best.  Yes, I’m a big fan of arcade fire, billy joel, the strokes, etc., but at the beginning of the school year one of my roommates introduced me to an artist called Milkman.  I had already heard of girl talk, the man many have referred to as the father of mashups, but had never really listened to a mashup.  Milkman in this way was my first, and his ability to combine Eminem with ac/dc, kanye west with  tenacious d, and hundreds of other combinations I found incredible.

So, back to my paper, during this long stretch of productivity I listened to, you guessed it, mashups.  I recently downloaded many different mashups including Super Mash Bros., E-603, and Girl Talk to compliment my milkman collection.  Like most college students, I decided I needed to take a quick break and tried to make a mashup.  It did not go well.  First off, I tried to separate parts of the songs by hand.  That is impossible.  Second, I downloaded clips that had already been separated.  That was a step in the right direction.  Finally I tried to combine them in Garageband.  That was a disaster.  garageband does not allow you to alter the tempos for clips independently, so I had one song faster than another at all times.  Approaching frustration and the end of my 15 minute break I decided to shoot for the stars.  I looked up Milkman’s real name, searched him on facebook, and sent him a message asking for any software suggestions for making mashups.  Soon after I realized that I was never going to hear back from one of my favorite artists.  Why would he respond to me?  A random college student on the other side of the country was asking for help to become a potential competitor in his eyes.  But this ordeal showed me something that we have repeatedly emphasized in class.  Facebook makes it incredibly easy to create connections.  It took me less than a minute to send a message off to a celebrity as far as I was concerned.  And even if he didn’t respond, chances were pretty high he would at least read it.

Having reached this conclusion I started to go over my essay again, listening to one of my favorite mashups, Controversy.  Not even five minutes into this revision I heard the ping* that is a new e-mail.  Looking for an excuse for another break I checked my e-mail immediately.  I was shocked.  It was a response from Milkman, aka Gregg Luskin, with a suggestion to try the software Audacity.  The one thing I was sure would not happen had happened.  Not only was it easy to contact a celebrity, but I received an almost instant response.  So, I repeat my original conclusion.  Facebook makes it incredibly easy to create connections.  It took me less than a minute to send a message off to a celebrity as far as I was concerned.  And even if he didn’t respond, chances were pretty high he would at least read it.  But wait a second, he did respond.  I always hear stories from friends about how they waited in lines for hours to meet some celebrity.  They sacrifice their time for a chance to say that they shook hands with someone famous, but what does that mean.  They say hi, they shake hands, but five minutes later that celebrity wouldn’t know the difference if they ran into him again.  With Facebook, I am having an actual conversation with one of my favorite artists.  Facebook is giving me something I value much more highly than a handshake.  It is giving me a chance to ask and learn from arguably the best mashup artist of all time (I’m not a big fan of girl talk, his songs are very hectic and don’t flow nearly as well as Milkman’s).  I found this interaction very cool, but also very relevant to our class as we discuss the role SNS’s play in our society.

For any who want to hear a mashup, I embedded a video below

Alright, time to get working on that paper…

In both of this weeks readings the conclusion was that social networking sites were increasing social capital.  For myself, this makes a lot of sense since I use websites like facebook to maintain connections that I would otherwise forget about.  Facebook gives me a way to keep in contact with people who would otherwise not matter.  In comparison, my parents friends are based purely on the people they work with and the people they live near.  They didn’t have the same opportunities to make and maintain connections so early on.

In “Bowling Online: Social Networking and Social Capital within the Organization,” Steinfield makes an interesting point about weak ties.  ”Social network sites may help individuals create and maintain social capital because the technical and social affordances of SNSs enable interaction, and therefore reciprocity, with a larger network of social connections.  These large networks are more likely to include “weak ties,” such as acquaintances and friends of friends, who are more likely to provide new information and diverse perspectives.”  I found this section intriguing because it pointed out the benefits to a weak relationship on a social website while most arguments against online networking points out the negative aspects of social networks as being the maintenance of ties which do not matter.  In a way Steinfield is making what many consider websites like Facebook’s weakness in fact a strength.  By utilizing these weaker connections, the friendships we would otherwise never have, we are increasing our “social capital.”

This weeks reading I found to be very interesting.  There was a lot of information about SNS’s that I did not know about before like why Facebook, MySpace, etc. became popular.  The notion that Facebook was successful because it did not allow users to make their profile open to all users I found very interesting.  To me it showed how well Facebook modeled real communities.  I would not care about trivial information of a random man in North Virginia.  People only find value in information that they are connected too.  I also found the tidbit on successful networks taking a narrow approach very interesting.  I had always thought of the success of a SNS as being measured by the number of users it had.  I never thought of there being specialized networks.  The idea of a small SNS being a club, with competetive entry was very interesting to me.  It reminded me a middle school group of kids whose group is valuable only because they match criteria that they designed themselves.  Creating an exclusive club makes the people inside feel even more connected.

“The time has come where the distinction between online and offline is not one between ‘fantasy’ and ‘real’ lives.  Rather, one can have just as meaningful relationships through online communities as offline based communities.  Cyberspace can not only provide solid, trusting communities, but ones which are not constrained by geography.”

I will be arguing against this proposition.

Four arguments against the proposition:

1.) Cyber-communities are hard to trust, if trust can be placed in them at all.  People on the internet are not who they are in real life.  Some one who is typically shy could be DragonBlade875 on youtube who gets in a heated fight over who is at fault in the video “AC TRANSIT BUS FIGHT I AM A MOTHERFUCKER.”  The even worse scenario is that some one you meet online is some sort of predator.  The bottom line is that know matter what you think, you just don’t know who it is you’re talking to when your online unless you have met them in person.

2.)Cyber-communities lack regulation and in that way are also dangerous.  For example, Second Life is some peoples major source of income.  If one was so inclined it would be easy to break buildings, vandalize, etc.  Someone  that owns a virtual store in Second Life could lose a significant amount of their income if something happened to their store.  However, unlike the real world where someone would be subject to punishment due to the law, the lack of regulations could mean that such a crime could go unpunished.

3.)”One study at UCLA indicated that up to 93 percent of communication effectiveness is determined by nonverbal cues. Another study indicated that the impact of a performance was determined 7 percent by the words used, 38 percent by voice quality, and 55 percent by the nonverbal communication”(about.com).  The thought that when we communicate over the internet we are losing 93% of the message that would have been sent if we were talking is astonishing.  If online communities become more prevalent then we are actually accomplishing the opposite of our goal of “solid, trusting communities.”   In actuality, the community could be growing apart as this supposedly open community is actually suffering problems with communication.

4.)I do not mean to imply that online communities can not be rewarding.  As I said in an earlier blog posts, I feel that the more you put into a virtual community, the more you get out of it.  However, be fore fully immersing yourself in this virtual reality, it is important to note number one, what you are putting your time into, and number two, where this time is coming from.  As I have said above cyber-communities can be filled with dangers due to their lack of regulation and how difficult it is really know who you are talking too and what their motives are.  Also, it is important to remember the opportunity cost of virtual communities. The more time and effort you put into knowing people online, the less time you have to meet people in real life.

Potential Counter-Argument

Online people are not judged on their looks and are able to make meaningful connections without the risk of being judged based on their appearance.  I would respond that for people who are paranoid or extremely self conscious they may find this to be a better alternative than risk being judged, but it is important to remember the cost of such a choice.  Online relationships lack any kind of physical connection and it is this physical connection that cyber-communities greatly underestimate.  There is a reason that people shake hands when they meet each other and hug when they say goodbye.  That reason is the physical connection we all experience but underestimate.  Its like your health.  You truly don’t appreciate it until you are sick.  No matter what people say, we all want to hold hands, hug, or shake hands.  Physical contact is a way we remind ourselves that we are not alone.

For anyone who wants to see the full clip, welcome to the future…

I found the part of Birkerts article about Lambda MOO the most interesting part of the reading.  That section seemed a bit extreme to me for some reason.  I was taken aback by how different it was from social networking websites like facebook which are primarily used to maintain or strengthen preexisting relationships.  Rarely do people use facebook to meet more people online.  I have always been taught not to believe anything online unless you know its real.  It took me a very long time to trust websites like Amazon with my money, and even then I limit them considerably.  All purchases from amazon are made with gift cards I purchase in stores, same with iTunes.  No computer has ever received my debit card information with the exception of my actual bank, bank of america.  For me, there is such a jump with communities like Lambda MOO in that there is a lot more trust being given to computers.

There is also the big difference with the amount of time that people in communities like Lambda MOO are giving to computers, as well as how they are using that time.  I am for all intents and purposes a geek, nerd, whatever you want to call me.  I love math, science, and computers.  I am on the robocup team, have been programming for over three years, and use my laptops virtual world to keep track of my real one.  My computer is out more than it is not in my waking hours.  Time wise, I would be suprised if F is on her computer more than me. The difference is that when her computer is on, she is ON the computer.  She is actively participating in Lambda MOO.  She is building relationships and has “saved” herself.  My computer is used to enhance my life.  It plays music while I’m with friends.  It gives me up to date information on my activities so I know what my schedule will be like for the day.  It helps me type my homework, it helps me find information, and it helps me learn how to play the guitar.  The difference between F and myself is that the computer IS F’s life whereas my computer enhances my life.

It is because of this that I do not consider F truly saved.  I understand that she is happier.  I understand that she is more active on a computer than she would be watching TV, but Carters claim that “You actually get to know someone inside, without being judged on appearance” I found hard to believe.  I may be the strange one here, and maybe I’ll jump on the bandwagon in the near future, but people are not who they are in person the people that they are online.  The internet takes away inhibitions in a way that I would compare to alcohol.  Some people would say that is a good thing, that as a community we need to be more open and inviting.  I would argue we have those inhibitions for a reason.  We need a way to filter the people we do and do not trust.  As much as it hurts to admit it, there are bad people out there.  The few bad people out there are responsible for our societies need to be careful, but it is a trait we must keep lest we risk exposing ourselves to the imminent dangers of the world.  Until F can use her computer to get back out in the real world and socialize with people rather than their virtual selves, I won’t consider her healed.  This brings us back to our class’s first reading, The Machine Stops.  Can technology allow us to form and maintain meaningful relationships?  For me the answer is, and will remain, no.