A Networked Self: Identity, Community, and Culture on Social Network Sites [Paperback]

A collection of papers delivered at a 1 day conference on social networks @ the University of Illinois in May of 2009. In most cases the approach was highly academic so this book may or may not interest a more general reader. I'm not an academic but I am interested in how Social Network Software environments are analogous yet different than previous forms of interpersonal communication, and the different roles they play in personal and professional life.

There is a strong keynote chapter by A. Barabasi on the growth of freescale networks. Delightful analogy relating Bose-Einstein condensation to "winner take all" growth. Very useful take on the ability of market latecomers (ie: Google, Facebook) to achieve and maintain network dominance, mitigated by the paradox that as they grow the market they will continue to grow in size, but overall percentage will shrink. Interesting to think about if you intend to beat Google at their own game. The only meme I think is missing from this paper is a reference to Metcalf's Law. (The value of a network is proportional to the square of the number of nodes - the larger the network the cheaper the relative cost of joining to the point where the benefit of joining a competing network is exponentially less.)

Ch 1 was not as strong as the keynote. It asks why CMC (computer mediated communication) is different and worthy of study. Umm, if not why would one choose to be reading this book? Even if it weren't the media provides a self documenting laboratory to examine characteristics of human behaviour. It did set out some sense of a basic program of study, but it was introductory.

Ch 2 by danah boyd asks to what extent SNS based groups can be considered to be communities. She recognizes the "messiness" of the analogy but does not choose to force it; rather she explores different modes in which people communicate such as through profiles, walls, comments, visible and invisible participants (lurkers) and collapsed contexts. An example of a CC given was that of 60s political activist Stokely Carmichael who would "talk black" to a black audience, but "talk white" to a white or mixed one. When faced with TV he chose the former which alienated the latter. (A bit before my time but I'm familiar with the name. Ch 9 has a similar example with targeted political campaigns. CC is a good concept to know about.) As a curious aside, I thought the lower case spelling of danah's name to be an editor's error in editing, but no, this is ms. boyd's personal choice and she appears in this form when referenced elsewhere in the book.

Ch 3 was about whether or not online activity was addictive. Negative effects were defined as depression and withdrawal leading towards alienation from family and work. The answer is yes, but it likely replaces other addictive activities, so it might even wind up being more healthy. Also if you get turned off by mathematical terms such as chi square tests, ANOVA and regressions (I'm not) you might want to skip it.

Ch 4 by Mark Andrajevik was a Marxist interpretation of SNS. He put forth the view that corporations were exploiting the free labour of users to add commercial value to their site without payment, and that employers (and others) would soon pressure employees to share their personal social nets for capital gain, in effect a colonization of private space. In one sense it was perhaps the strongest paper in the book and he makes a number of good points. I've passed up commenting on some online articles precisely because of the requirement of linking my post to my Facebook identity which I reserve solely for personal friends and family. On the other hand Andrajevik doesn't consider the aspect of free riders who exploit the provided service for their own use or jammers, both of which could provide a net negative value. Generally I find Marxist dialectic narrow and limiting, especially since we don't really know what SNS is going to be. I found myself poking holes in Andrajevik's arguments but enjoyed him nonetheless. For a vg novel that follows through on this concept see "The Disincorporated Man".

Ch 5 is about the notion of community and asks whether or not the concept really applies to SNS. As such it relates well to Ch 2 and does cite danah boyd's work. Some sociologists feel that the traditional notion of community was undermined by modern urbanization and that the drive to SNS constitutes a form of nostalgia. The paper has a good beginning but I wasn't satisfied with the approach, and the discussion of "affordances" (what a device or a piece of software allows you to do, ie: refrigerators are made of steel - they allow you to post messages turning them into family centres; a virtual wall would have similar properties for a community) didn't go as far as it could have. In particular it should have categorized and itemized what the affordances in SNS software were.

Ch 6 picks up on a bit of this in discussing the nature of "social capital" but examines it in terms of benefits accruing to the participant. A good example would be this review that I've written. I might have to ask myself why I am spending my free time writing it when, according to Ch 4, Amazon is exploiting my efforts in order to profit by selling this book. On the other hand members of the public might benefit either by getting a sense of what the book is about instead of reading it, they might choose to get it from the public library, and public knowledge and the public good may be enhanced by greater knowledge of the subject. A good review might also enhance (slightly) the reputation of the authors, if not with the public at large then their family and friends. I benefit in the sense that writing a summary acts as a long term virtually portable memory aid and by putting it in the public sphere I'm forced to reflect on and integrate what I've learned. I might even get a small ego boost if you click Yes at the bottom. ;-)

A result, which may relieve parents, most teenagers and young adults use social sites such as Facebook and MySpace to support and maintain relationships with people they've met in the real world as opposed to making new friends.

Chapter 7 categorized users into 5 types: Non-Users, Dabblers, Samplers, Devotees (highly focused on one site) and Omnivores who use multiple SNS sites. The percentage of Omnivores was high (45%) with women more likely than men to engage in peer to peer activity. The breakdown into ethnic groups (white, hispanic, afro-american, asian american and native american) though was not particularly relevant to me as a Canadian as we tend to focus more on economic strata than ethnic heritage as a diversity issue. Math phobic readers might want to skim this chapters as well.

Chapter 8 was about adopting SNS in the workplace. Not much here that was new for me. Outline potential benefits and confirmed that a top down approach doesn't work without explaining why. (We failed to achieve global benefits with CRM - sales people and managers did not want to record or share information which they rightly regarded as personal. Grass roots approaches such as messaging groups on BlackBerry were considered to be effective.

Ch 9 & 10 were only slightly different looks at the relationship between SNS and the political sphere focussing largely on American political campaigns, in particular the 2008 Presidential race. Blog readers tended to be slightly more Republican but had significantly higher incomes than interpersonal site users. I was surprised at the high incidence (42%) of political involvement amongst both groups (though the degree of involvement was not clearly differentiated) vs. no involvement at all. Most individuals surveyed used SNS media to find out more about their choices. An interesting result was the negative correlation between YouTube use and voting vs. a positive correlation for other SNS. Another observation was that campaigning targeted towards specific constituencies backfired as it could be widely parodied or played back in other markets less sympathetic to the message.

Ch 11 was a disappointing examination of the use of Twitter among marketing personnel. Though the approach towards the analysis was interesting, most of the the traffic examined was about Twitter and SNS itself indicating that the subjects were just starting to get interested in SNS. I didn't feel that there was anything revealing about regular usage.

Ch 12: On Fair Use and Copyright had little new to say and half of it was a public extract on fair use available on the Internet.

Ch 13: Collective Narcissism in Facebook Photos was a pretty cool - it was an anthropological approach to categorizing the usage of photos by 1st year college students. The subjects were using Facebook to present a self narrative of coming of age. The author looked at both images and comments, most of which one would consider to be quite tame, and differences in frequencies of behaviour between men and women. Common categories were group vs. single portraits of self and others, posed vs. natural shots and an unusually high number of self referential shots including self portraits, pictures of reflections in mirrors and pictures of people taking pictures. Overt sexuality was rare or intentionally campy. Most people knew they were aware of the public nature of the space.

Ch 14 concerned an AI project, "Sarah" who was called a "FaceBot". It's a mobile platform with an Internet link. Components included a face recognition program that could identify you if you were a member of Sarah's online "Friends" and voice recognition that could interpret simple questions. By way of conversation it would update it's (and your) status on Facebook and inform you of new postings of your online friends. The thesis was that people would relate better to AI if the programs made use of social knowledge. It was fun, interesting, and much too short!

Because these are conference proceedings there isn't as strong a focus as would be found in an authored book. None of the essays examined social interaction in alternate realisms such as Second Life (2 lines in Ch 5) in any depth, gaming or differences between online and real world personae.

Overall it was an interesting read.