Judith Masthoff, Computing Science With some slides from W. Moncur SX1009/SX1509 The Digital Society Inter-personal Relations in the Digital Society Judith Masthoff, Computing Science With some slides from W. Moncur

Social Networks (Findings from Anthropology /Sociology) Predicted group size for humans is ~150 [Dunbar’s Number] Hunter-Gatherer communities Relationship between contact-frequency and intimacy (Hill & Dunbar, 2003) Currency is social support: emotional and practical support, information and companionship (Ferlander, 2007) Layers: support clique (3-5), sympathy group (12-20), band (30-50), clan (150) Neolithic villages 6500 BC 150-200 18th century English villages 160 Military units (company) 180 Nebraska Amish parishes 113 Xmas card networks 154 Hunter-Gatherer communities 148

Social Media What is social media? Link to video (by Say it Visually, 4 min) Causes significant changes on how people relate to each other

Some data > 500 million active users (Oct 2010) 50% login on any given day Average user has 130 friends 75 million users (Jan 2010) 40% have not sent a single tweet > 40 million users (Nov 2009) 48 million users (Feb 2010) > 80 million members (Oct 2010)

What is Social Media? Broader than social networking sites Email (lists), phone messages, skype

Communication “What Facebook is for” by somegreybloke Link to video (3:20 minutes) “Facebook manners” by yourtango Link to video (4:15 minutes) “Facebook fever” by HappySlip Link to video (3:15 minutes) Videos from youtube

Mass-collaboration “Crowdsourcing” by Jeff Howe Link to video (3:20 minutes) “Wikinomics” by smalekoti Link to video (2:30 minutes) Don Tapscott on wikinomics and particularly ideagoras Link to video ( 1 minute) Videos from youtube

Aspects of mediated communication Format / Bandwidth Synchronous/ asynchronous Identity Permanence Privacy Intimacy

Synchronous Participants communicate at the same time Sense of co-presence Mutual esteem between participants Eg – phone conversation, MSN, online gaming

Asynchronous Linked, but separate, episodes of communication for each participant Lack of presence Greater time between messages  less valued communication? Messages more carefully constructed? Eg – Twitter, answer-phone, email.

(Disembodied) Identity Cues available in physical world absent Identity essential in understanding & evaluating social interactions Online identity produced through impression management

Identity Principle of reciprocity Named, pseudonymous, anonymous I see you, you see me Named, pseudonymous, anonymous Only 9% of teenagers on MySpace gave their full name - Hinduja & Patchin (2004)

Named identity

Pseudonymous identity

Anonymous

Disembodied identity Malign intent Impression management Fraud Paedophilia Trolling Impression management looking better than you are? – 2nd life

Identity and impression management Second life, second identity Link to video (5:30 minutes, or first 3 minutes) Philip Rosedale on virtual identity Link to video (3:45 minutes) “Online identity” by staticfuror Link to video ( 2:10 minute) Videos from youtube

Privacy Mediated communications May persist long after original interaction May be passed on to unintended recipients Data mining May be out of context ... Or just embarrassing

Permanence Urban legends “Starbucks Refuses to Donate Coffee to U.S. Marines” Email flier accuses Starbucks of refusing to donate coffee to U.S. Marines on the grounds that the company is against the Iraq war 'and anyone in it‘ Marine Sgt. Howard C. Wright, who authored the email in May 2004, subsequently issued a retraction The rumour persists. http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/bl_starbucks_marines.htm

Intimacy How intimate is the communication? Kiss Communicator, IDEO Stephen Fry, with > 50000 Twitter followers

Researching social networks Methods: surveys, diaries, observations, experiments Typical Data gathered: names of social network members details for each network member to establish tie strength and information flow the types of support and resources that flow around the network network diversity (categories of people involved, such as partner, kin, colleague)

Examples Hill & Dunbar (2003) studied the exchange of Christmas cards, capturing data on distance, relationship, social status, emotional closeness and time since last contact for each person mailed. Granovetter (1973) studied gender and kinship, the time people had known each other, the emotional intensity of the tie, and the degree of mutual confiding. Agneessens et al (2006) examined the perceived network size via social support exchanged, using subjective questions on the emotional support, instrumental support and companionship that egos felt that they received.

Modelling social relations David Graphs each person is a node relationship is an edge edges can be directed relationship can have a strength Social networks tend to have Short average path length High connectivity Laurie Steven

Assessment You will be assigned to a group (3-4 people) General area: “how the digital world impacts people’s relationships / interactions in the real world”. Your group needs to decide on one question within this broad area that you will investigate. Your group needs to produce a blog on WordPress.com, with regular updates on your investigations and findings. The way you investigate will be just as important as what you find. (Not just googling for information, but doing your own research).