Social media and differentiation: Obsessed much?

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...

Getting the full snoop. What’s next?

Spending hours in front of my computer and constantly attached to my phone, my (rather inquisitive) mind has never before been so littered with various divergences, distractions and imaginary social instances.

These start innocently enough – looking at a friends Wall on Facebook, back-tracking their posts to other friends, then looking at their friends, taking a glimpse at tagged photos… And uh-oh is it the afternoon already?

At my defence I point to the possibilities offered by the capability of technology that afford such social rational. In diong so my argument is based on an awareness that not only are my friends doing the same , but also that they will also make their judgements and how you react and/or are aware of such activities reflects and affects your mood and, ultimately, your relationships.

Nevertheless, this particular social state is addictive. I am proud to state that I have never intruded where the boundaries of public decency and good grace of friendship respect would not allow. As such (thank goodness) I have never unearthered the unexpected: a previously unknown dependency on drugs, internet porn, gambling, or some other wayward and socially disapproved activity of those in my network(s). BUT I shall confess, that this type of social snooping has taken over parts of my everyday life and increasingly take up my creative energies, have infiltratrated my sleep and take over my time.

Now it is difficult to try and pry oneself away from such veillance. But should one?...

Putting these thoughts together I am already nose-deep into Sam Gosling’s psychological take on ‘other people’s stuff’. His notion of the Snoop celebrates what your ‘stuff’ says about you. In doing so, Gosling interprets from what people leave in their bathroom, to how they arrange their desk and order their bedroom to build up an interpretative picture of the inner self. Such elements of daily life are suggestive not only of elements of our character, but now sat alongside the constant streams of social information from SNSs can reveal our most personal qualities.

It strikes me that such perceptions fall into three categories.

1. The ‘fair game’ category: Where going through others social information is completely acceptable. Such feeds are broadcast as direct elements of your SNS newsfeed and make it permissible (and pleasing) to check out the related image uploads, wall posts etc.
2. The ‘sneaky game’ category: For those occasions when you have been following the fair game state of play, but find yourself clicking through to target specific information and/or people in other networks - including those whom you may not know. But this is not considered ‘a big deal’ since you share a friend in common right?… ummm…
3. Finally the red alert, red alert, red alert! ‘devious game’ category: Devious because you have had to employ time and thought into hacking into a private account. The main dividing line being the completely illegal and totally shameful set of actions that you now employ to turn a snoop into a potential scoop. I am pleased to say I have never ever (nor would I) do this and so can happily dismiss this level of snoopage!

But why do we follow such actions? A good friend of mine has justified her ‘devious game’ and red alert! actions as they took place during an 'uncontrollable set of circumstances' that conspired during a break up. Upon receiving a ‘mysterious text’, which contained the message: ‘do you know where ***** is tonight?’ Quite naturally she wanted to uncover some answers…

Following the sneaky game play I have uncovered some elements of my own social snippets about friends, boyfriends and acquaintances - mostly when aided by a (vain) curiousity to know what exes of past boyfriends have been like, what groups someone belongs to, the kinds of images they upload and their friends tag etc. and then interpreting what this says about them...

However, there comes (before) the red alert! point when I (and so should you) feel the need to stop! and I recognise that enough is enough is enough. Crossing over to the dark side you run risk of invading (whether intentionally or not) into the lives of others and also making yourself look less than trustworthy and dishonest in the process.

In actuality the opportunity to snoop is a magnificent social divergence. Even so the clicking through of that tagged photo can quickly lead to a red alert situation! The result? Our actions have to be contextualised in measured proportions - so only snoop as far as you would want your friends to in your life…

Unexpected Encounter. Friends Reunited. Or ‘I’ll spit in your handbag’.

Even though personal convention and social *wisdom* suggests the opposite, I will share the most recent outcome of an incidental (re)meeting in the street of an old friend. The Smack the Pony’s sketch – Friends Reunited - is an excellent portrayal of the potential social awkwardness of this situation…

H: Lucy!

L: Hannah! Hello,

H: Great to see you! Well I had your number but everything just got burned!

L: Oh great to see you. Lets change numbers.

H: Write on my hand. Here’s a pen.

L: Bus ticket! Oh no that’s broken. Damn it.

H: Lippy, lippy, lipstick on the paper.

L: Really got to rush rush rush,

H: No I can’t read that at all.

L: What to do?

H: I could scratch my number on your glasses.

L: I must go.

H: Spit in my bag.

L: Err no.

H: I could likck your back, and then you roll on the ground it adheres.

L: Quick! A tattoo.

H: There’s no time.

L: Must go.

H: Numbers. We can remember numbers…

L: No I’m never going to remember that. Really got to go.

H: What to do?

L: Meet here in a year. Same time and place.

H: Or even sooner.

L: I can’t. married to a rock star.

H: Wow.

L: Bye.

How difficult is it for us to reconnect and to accept an invitation from someone else? We feel under pressure to communicate, connect and reconnect. Then we find instead that ‘life just gets in the way’ – and so we are left with the option to either ‘spit in your handbag’ and walk away with mention of a rock star husband. OR, to really reconnect and then to take the time and effort to follow this up from the ‘hi’ in the street.

Someone I know recently went looking for lost school friends (he was bored in bed with flu and had just discovered Facebook). The result of his social daliance were that most 'friends' would accept his invitation, but did little to follow up this reintroduction. My explanation was that I was not surprised. Particularly when he explained how he was motivated by Lemsip combined with a flu fever. I too would probably be reluctant to follow up a friendship ‘hint’ had I received such a request myself.

Hi I have flu, long time no see! How are you doing?

There are a few reasons for this reaction. First, we live life through and with those we know, and who know us best. Had we wanted to reconnect with old school friends, by now, we probably would have already done it. (Apologies to those old school friends I have not got back in touch with and who may be reading this!). At the heart of this is the idea that there is no such thing as the ‘pure’ friendship/relationship – there is always a reciprocity that is expected and attached to such actions. Hence a message/invitation etc. is always sent with the (implicit) expectation that we will give something in return and in order to make it worth our while to offer up our attention. Second, there is a sense that we attach different kind of meaning to seemingly random and out of the blue incidents - Whether the bumping into an old friend in the street, or the unexpected friend request on Facebook - One member of the party may take this very seriously, the other does not know, understand, nor care to receive it.

These social negotiations are tangled up in need for personal protectiveness and prevention of risk.An assessment that quickly changes from 'what to do' or 'how to respond' to such requests. This is weighed up against the personal effort it will take on our part and demands such actions will make on our personal time.

These observations may seem negative, but they are mainly about asserting our expectations and opportunities around everyday interactions. In this way perhaps we should not be so hard on ourselves if we want to assert we are married to a rock star and would rather walk away than 'spit in your handbag'. Personally, the more I research and pursue my own connections, the more social etiquette matters. Here self-reflection is key for establishing the shared rules for acceptable behaviour and to avoid handbags at dawn.

Go slow! For a healthier lifestyle...

Hurry up! A common phrase. Everywhere, via evey-technological-thing, things are moving at apace.

'What? You mean I have to wait 45 seconds to download from the Bay of Pirates?...'

Too often daily life is spent racing around. So if you feel like life is taking you for too fast a ride, there is hope this week until 4th May in the form of Slow Down London, a project to inspire Londoners to find ‘a saner pace of life.’
SDL's emphasis is on slower distractions: slow music and arts; meditation, yoga; slow food; 'slow travel' (hmmm have you travelled London to York lately?); to slow debates about time and pace; and finally finding your own (slow) way to challenge our culture and need for speed.

So we’re moving too fast? Consuming too much information? One could claim that we have hit an information epidemic – imposed by a need for diversionary distractions, at an en mass and on-demand rate.

SDL is suggestive of a need for cultural change as lifestyles get caught up in the constant circulation of social information and being pressures to be in the loop. In such daily life cycles, perhaps there’s room for a new kind of diet plan? Move aside weight loss drug Alli – there’s a new kind of obese lifestyle to combat: Too many Facebook friends; too many tweets...

We need a pill! One that blocks all media and could automatically ‘de-friend’ all contacts. Pop it! And we could be free!

Social Network Sites (SNSs) could provide a round of prescriptive doses to wean their most addicted users - those with a higher Friend Mass Index (FMI) of 5,000 or more.

Our expert says: 'it may help some people with friend loss, but they would have to take a conscious decision to stop poking so much'.

Anyone who wants the medication should go directly to their friendly Social Media Consultant for advice because there are high risk factors for other obsessive behaviour. For example, watching The Wire until a Baltimore accent is perfected and understood, and filling 24hours with 24.

Trials show that by de-friending on a reduced friend diet, can help people lose 50% more friends than turning off the mobile alone.

But if individuals persist in 'just' watching friends, they can expect some negative side effects, including the urge to follow Jonathon Ross Wossy on Twitter.

Dr Mariann Hardey, Social Media Analyst, said: ‘This pill can work and the risks are minimal, but it must play into a larger scale social information management regime. Such lifestyle changes must come first and last – I heartily recommend the efforts of Slow Down London.’
Key points
# Networks with an FMI of 10 to 500 is normal
# By 2050, 90% of men and 70% of women will have an embarrassing picture on Facebook
# Facebook will account for 18 million friendships and 50 million arguments a day

For more serious Slow Down tips why not try my favourite Top Three:

1. Take yourself for a walk – without any media device! But be sure to notify your Twitter followers before you do, they might miss you , and social etiquette says that it would be rude not to.
2. Do not check email first thing in the morning. Erk! As if?! Nothing says ‘good morning’ more than catching up on what you might have missed the day before over tea and toast. This is as routine for as having a shower first thing. A more realistic tactic I am trying to impose is to have an email lock down every other hour. This is to give time on other important projects – such as writing!
3. At the same point each evening, turn off every communication device. Remind yourself of your family and friends away from Facebook. Play games, talk.

I’m sure there are more, so if you can’t be at the SDL, but want to join in, you add your ideas here...

I'll make sure to be slow to reply.

Eye Spy: We ARE under scrutiny

'They've got your number' Charles Arthur reported in last weeks Media Guardian - where every call, email, poke, prod, comment and tweet is logged regarding a source and their contact. Whilst about the context of 'investigative journalism' the article is suggestive of the much more sinister side of checks and 'safeguards' considered an OK intrusion into private lives. Both yours and mine. 'Fine' for investigative journalists and their sources(?!), but (deep breath in)...

{start of rant/} I did not intend, nor do I expect that the collaborative connections I share with others be so exposed and under such 'civil' scrutiny.

So much so, now I MUST take action to protect both myself and others linked to me. This is not the same as an update to Facebook Privacy Settings, but one step away from a serious invasion into private lives.

Should it be fair, that those who are relative slow to catch-up, be left unprotected until the day comes when they have to say 'oh no! I didn't mean to disclose that?' {/end of rant}

And Breathe.

For the past week, press columnists, bloggers, commentators and everday conversations have foamed at the mouth with righteous fury against the behaviour of Damian McBride, Gordon Brown's now very fallen Doctor of Spin. On the one hand the current Government shows initiative for innovative use of technology (DowningStreet on Twitter) as a welcome addition to various communicative channels. Suddenly things seemed more 'open', 'friendly' and 'responsive'. However, following the careless leak of emails and intended blog posts that McBride intended to use for smear of the opposition this prompts an important question - why are there no similar checks and safeguards into the lives and actions of MPs?...

I detest that such activities come out of an assumed knowledge and obsession with social media. Too often I have overheard that a lack of formal acquaintance with technology means you know less than the next person who eats code for breakfast. Comparatively, one persons day-long Facebook use is anothers once-weekly update. And anothers 'new media' is still rooted in 'old media', which could be yet anothers 'social media'. NOW is the time to think about a shared language, understanding and implementation of rules and regulations to protect all. No matter what your 'social media' outlook or preference. Even if you like MySpace (*shudder*).

Will this come 'top down' from the Government? Unlikely. Government policy cannot even cope with safeguarding their own blogs. In all liklihood these are the individuals most likely to be caught 'doing something' 'badly behaved' on the likes of Facebook.

Perhaps it is time that we followed them, as much as they intend to follow us...

Wired. You're Fired!

When not 'here' I also write for another blog GirlyGeekdom. Not usually one to cross-post (that's for a more lazy journo approach), this piece is interesting and worthy enough to 'double up'.

The just lauched UK edition of Wired Magaine. This week I am struck by the obvious; With more technology for our geeky pleasure, are the GirlGeeks being overlooked? I ask: Where are the women writers?... For the front page byline 'Your Life in the Future' - 'your' must refer to the men only...

A particularly pertinent piece is the article 'The People Who Really Run Britain' (PWRRB) (p.136). Thankfully not Bob Quick as Senior Counter Terrorist Officer, but a portfolio of ardent workers who for Philip Sinden 'operate in the shadows'. Individuals who range from the 'nation's memory keeper' - guarding official documentations in an underground 'safe house'; 'the time setter' responsible for keeping the nations clocks to time; to the a 'Channel tunnel guardian' who 'keeps air flowing through the Eurotunnel'.

Only one of the PWRRB's Top Ten is a woman. I do not want to labour the point too much, but it seems appropriate to point out (with the support of GirlyGeekdom) that women are not only the minority in terms of written content in Wired, but the same is also true in terms of subject and article presence. The (only) Woman Who Really Runs Britain is Caroline Porter, 29, a business manager at London Metal exchange. Her role is to control the feeds of metal prices - 'the global reference prices' - that are delivered to the global economy. Without her there would meltdown, literally.

Skip to the front of Wired (P.15) and the 05.09 Contributors Page, of the six main contributors, one, Susan Greeenfield (Baroness no less), is the pioneer of content contributed by women. I am not suggesting that Wired is all male-to-male content. Far from it. UK Wired is, in my opinion, far better than its US counterpart in the publication of balanced, interesting and satisfyingly technology divulgent coverage. But then I flick back again through the magazine and the if the masculine led written word doesn't hit you, the masculine emphasis of marketing and advertisement will. TagHeur watch here, Sony Bravia with football coverage there, Jaguar where 'the thrill lasts much longer' and Tom Ford 'for men' (just to re-assert the masculine message) set the tone for the First Edition.

The 'How to...' contribution from Kevin Braddock and Jack Dyson (a relation?) is a revelation in its inventiveness for instructions for everday living. From 'eating for free', to 'making your own lipstick'. The boys may fail to explain how to raise the profile of women within a wired culture... but maybe they are building to that in the next edition...

Oh and FYI, type 'Susan Greenfield' into the search engine of Wired to reveal...

Your search - susan greenfield - did not match any documents.

Suggestions:

• Make sure all the words are spelled correctly.
• Try different keywords.
• Try more general keywords.

Search Wired

Top Stories Magazine Wired Blogs All Wired

Yes. Well I think that says it all really.

Time to create my own Wired.

ZeroCool

It’s funny how the days quickly roll by as lives are streamed by the various portals of socially charged information. Hello to Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, Dopplr…

It doesn’t seem over ten years since our alleged entry into the ethereal arena of cyberspace. And my, didn’t we take it all so seriously ‘back then’.

Over the weekend I re-watched Hacker’s. Director’s Iain Softley’s, 1995, vision of a New York situated cyberpunk culture. Lot’s of smoking, lots of inline - should that be online? ‘waaaaaaay cool dude!’ - skates and 'a 28.8 bps [sic] modem!’. And with Angelina Jolie.

Friends are made, lost along the way, re-made and the movie ends with Angelina getting wet in a pool with not-a-lot-a-on as a result of the games, territorial fights of fancy and the ultimate battle with a ‘big bad wolf’ corporation as led by the hacking community and culture.

So, today, why so 1990s?

One line in the film stands out, when a friend of the ‘PhantonPhreak’s’ asserts, ‘you’re nobody unless you have a handle’ – an individuals self-nominated ‘cyber’ name, the equivalent of what we would use as a username.

Today, it could equally be argued that ‘you’re nobody if you use anything but your real name’. An interesting turn of events. Where once the anonymous identity reigned supreme, now you’re only ‘insanely great’ if your friends can recognise you and be there to track your every movement. To this extent, the Hacker's suggestive nod to George Orwell’s 1984 Big Brother ‘I’m watching you’ is suitably fitting.

Today this would be 'we're watching you'... Add to this observation, today the main protagonist ZeroCool would be zero cool, dismissed as a fake persona and consequently receive no friends on Facebook.

There’s been a steady change to the inclusion (intrusion?) of the arrays of technology, applications and resources that supplement our daily social highlights, lowlights and reveal the lowlifes. Perhaps we should all get used to suffering a new malady of data retention.

From today all ISPs will be ‘legally obliged’ to store all details of your internet content and telephony for 12 months. Whilst not the BigBrother central database of communications information – there are longer term outcomes that will affect our civil liberties. One example is how last month Facebook both defended its right to impose, and had users obliged to support, the sites new terms of service. For Zuckerberg this was promoted on the Facebook blog as an opportunity, 'On Facebook, People Own and Control Their Information’ – in short, ‘we have your data and we’re not afraid to use it’. Faced with heavy criticism, the threat of legal action and rebel against Facebook by users (the Facebook group, People Against the New Terms of Service, grew to nearly 150,000 members) the company reinstated the old terms of service and with a new Facebook (trust us) group: The Facebook Bill of Rights and Responsibilities (with less than 100,000 members).

One day such events will tempt us to look back and recall not only ‘oh what a funny place that little cyber world was’, but to lament ‘oh how we used to be at liberty’… Now that was a funny old world which was far from ZeroCool.

Some questions to keep in mind: What is privacy? How are we surveilled across networks? What values do should we hold important for personal data? How can governments, corporations, and individuals make information safe?...