1. 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

2. 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
18th century English villages
160
Military units (company)
180
Nebraska Amish parishes
113
Xmas card networks
154
Hunter-Gatherer communities
148

3. 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

4. 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)

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

6. 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

7. 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

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

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

10. 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, .

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

12. 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)

13. Named identity

14. Pseudonymous identity

15. Anonymous

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

17. 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

18. 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

19. Permanence Urban legends
“Starbucks Refuses to Donate Coffee to U.S. Marines”
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 in May 2004, subsequently issued a retraction
The rumour persists.

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

21. 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)

22. 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.

23. 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

24. 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).