Modern society is now charged by social media in/action(s). The what you do, when you are doing it and how you say you're doing it.Equally society has always been characterised by powerful social divisions - whether along the lines of technology ownership: 'you don't have an iPhone?!', gender: 'girl geeks don't code', class: 'MySpace for 'chavs', Facebook for BBC/Guardian middle classes', country/region: 'Bebo most popular in Ireland, Mixi in Japan', etc. Traditionally, far from being universal, social life is disrupted by forms of communication, patterns of consumerism, engagement and access. Precisely how these operate in daily life and relate to one another represents major issues. Phillip Nowark, of Social Media Unraveled.com, suggests a 'No Farting: A guide to Twitter Etiquette' - which links rather nicely to my own etiquette sensibilties I explore on properfacebooketiquette. Here it is the attention to social details that matter. For example, the perceptions of a time famine reflect the greater pressures on our (busy) lives with regard to work, play, friends, family and acquaintences.
Linda Buzzell for AlterNet explores the 'psychological impact' of our fast-paced and highly pressured world. Calling for us to Slow Down: How Our Fast-Paced World Is Making Us Sick. With the greater outlets for participation, the visibility of what we are doing, shown in real time - so as we are doing it - point to a greater intensity to be of-the-moment and constantly aware of others. Together, these characteristics are all candidates for what is a multi-casual explanation of frequent social anxities about the potential demise of known social etiquette.
So are we all obsessed? And not with the content of our underware.
Modes of social media expression have become a principal form of social distinction and require (new) social explanations. For example, do too many tweats in one day screams 'desperate' and 'annoying' to friends? And what are the consequences of syncing your Tweets with your Facebook updates?... Just some of the dilemmas that will be addressed by @tweetsuavities - a new Twitter feed that explores the way in which social issues are to be tweeted, or rather treated, with the benefits, pleasures and possible pitfalls one might expect to accure using Twitter as one element of social media.
One particular issue that interests me, is the (possible) substitution between our modes of encounter that emerge constantly through streams of social information. Take, for example, if a friend is 'missing' on Facebook, more than likely it will be revealed what 'they are doing' via Twitter, Flickr, their email etc. The reason for my interest, aside from usual sociological nosiness, is the succession of each socially mediated 'part' of a person which have different consequences for social relations/hips. the obligations and bonds associated with making sure our friends are sufficiently fed with our information (as communal discourse), against our familial ties and relationships (as a more domestic discourse) can differ widely in a social market of constant exchange and update.
In short, social media acts as a vehicle for our socialisation and additional social preferences. Our decisions are made about whether 'I like them' and so will subscribe to their feed(s), tweets etc.) Thus there is the reproduction of relationships as we hold them outside social media, which go on to influence how we might be encouraged to transform our relations in the future...
Where can you find out more? Well some of the above requires following @tweetsuavities, @mazphd and reading properfacebooketiquette...
