[Air-L] facebook, twitter and annoyances

[Caroline Haythornthwaite]

I suspect that food discussion -- as in daily food activity, preparation, recipe sharing, etc. -- is an aspect of female oriented discussion. It wraps in issues of domesticity, caring for others, etc. 

Gender experts may now jump in!  

/Caroline

---- Original message ----
>Date: Sat, 31 Oct 2009 15:51:52 -0700
>From: KMV <cuuixsilver at gmail.com>  
>Subject: Re: [Air-L] facebook, twitter and annoyances  
>To: aoir list <air-l at aoir.org>
>
>Food posts are surprisingly compelling; when I post and update in FB
>about things I'm baking or cooking, especially if they involve sweets,
>I get more comments than on almost any other kind of update.  Food is
>an interest almost everyone shares, and what people eat can be pretty
>revealing of their personality and day-to-day life.
>
>
>
>On Sat, Oct 31, 2009 at 3:23 PM, Baym, Nancy <nbaym at ku.edu> wrote:
>> But there are often hundreds of others with differing interests and more may
>> care what someone ate than you think. The Other is not a monolith that
>> agrees on the value of all posts.
>>
>> I am often surprised how much I enjoy food posts of people to whom I am not
>> close and how bored I am by things that are "supposed" to be "interesting."
>>
>>
>>
>> On Oct 31, 2009, at 4:57 PM, "Barry Wellman" <wellman at chass.utoronto.ca>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> OTOH, You do have to take the role of the other.
>>>
>>> And who the heck cares that you had eggs for breakfast, other than you and
>>> your partner?
>>>
>>>
>>> Barry Wellman
>>> _______________________________________________________________________
>>
>>
>>>
>>>  S.D. Clark Professor of Sociology, FRSC               NetLab Director
>>>  Department of Sociology                  725 Spadina Avenue, Room 388
>>>  University of Toronto   Toronto Canada M5S 2J4   twitter:barrywellman
>>>  http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman             fax:+1-416-978-3963
>>>  Updating history:      http://chass.utoronto.ca/oldnew/cybertimes.php
>>> _______________________________________________________________________
>>
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sat, 31 Oct 2009, danah boyd wrote:
>>>
>>>> Date: Sat, 31 Oct 2009 17:03:56 -0400
>>>> From: danah boyd <aoir.z3z at danah.org>
>>>> To: Barry Wellman <wellman at chass.utoronto.ca>
>>>> Cc: "Baym, Nancy" <nbaym at ku.edu>, aoir list <air-l at aoir.org>
>>>> Subject: Re: [Air-L] facebook, twitter and annoyances
>>>>
>>>> Life isn't so neatly compartmentalized.  Remove the internet for a
>>>> moment.  My guess is that you have dear friends who are sometimes
>>>> brilliant to speak with and sometimes, not so much.  You don't reject
>>>> them as friends just because not all of the conversations are
>>>> brilliant.  Likewise, you have colleagues who you have intensely
>>>> philosophical debates with but, when standing in line for lunch, the
>>>> conversation centers around something else. We can value people for
>>>> just one facet of their lives but our friends and other intimates are
>>>> more than that.  Of course, perhaps you have friends who could never
>>>> stop talking about their kids so you stopped inviting them to dinner
>>>> parties.  This happens too.  But none of our strong connections with
>>>> people are truly always on topic.  We just easily forget the chitter
>>>> chatter and remember the deeply meaningful.
>>>>
>>>> Perhaps we should be asking ourselves: Why is it that, when we go
>>>> online, we want to optimize for the brilliant conversations only?  Why
>>>> do we want to reduce our connections down to only one facet? Is this
>>>> because of the asynchronicity?  Is it because of our self-
>>>> involvement?  Or something else?
>>>>
>>>> Personally, I like the peripheral awareness that's baked into status
>>>> updates.  Sure, some of what you say is brilliant, but mostly I like
>>>> the tempo of the connection, the reminder of personality and quirks,
>>>> the feeling of being part of humanity even when I'm sitting in my
>>>> living room.
>>>>
>>>> danah
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Oct 31, 2009, at 11:41 AM, Barry Wellman wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> sounds like we need multiple twitter accounts.
>>>>> but life may not be so neatly compartmentalized;-)
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> how do you feel about Oscar Wilde.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Barry Wellman
>>>>> _______________________________________________________________________
>>
>>
>>>>>
>>>>> S.D. Clark Professor of Sociology, FRSC               NetLab Director
>>>>> Department of Sociology                  725 Spadina Avenue, Room 388
>>>>> University of Toronto   Toronto Canada M5S 2J4   twitter:barrywellman
>>>>> http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman             fax:+1-416-978-3963
>>>>> Updating history:      http://chass.utoronto.ca/oldnew/cybertimes.php
>>>>> _______________________________________________________________________
>>
>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Sat, 31 Oct 2009, Baym, Nancy wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Date: Sat, 31 Oct 2009 10:34:00 -0500
>>>>>> From: "Baym, Nancy" <nbaym at ku.edu>
>>>>>> To: Barry Wellman <wellman at chass.utoronto.ca>
>>>>>> Cc: aoir list <air-l at aoir.org>
>>>>>> Subject: Re: [Air-L] facebook, twitter and annoyances
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Of course it's complex. But what if another of that person's
>>>>>> followers
>>>>>> funds the food updates a lovely way to feel connected but is annoyed
>>>>>> by all those professionally tinged informational links. "Interesting"
>>>>>> is not a quality of message but of a particular listener's response
>>>>>> to
>>>>>> a message. "Almost all" is often an unwarranted assumption from one's
>>>>>> own point of view. Furthermore, even if "almost all" holds, they may
>>>>>> not be the people most important to the tweeter.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Nancy
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Oct 31, 2009, at 10:06 AM, "Barry Wellman"
>>>>>> <wellman at chass.utoronto.ca> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> 1. Nancy, I think it is more complex. What if there are really
>>>>>>> interesting people whose posts are often filled with gems, but at
>>>>>>> the same
>>>>>>> posts some self-infatuated or status update stuff ("going for
>>>>>>> breakfast")
>>>>>>> ("sitting in my garden") stuff which is not interesting to almost
>>>>>>> all.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> The Air-L at listserv.aoir.org mailing list
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>>>>>
>>>>> Join the Association of Internet Researchers:
>>>>> http://www.aoir.org/
>>>>
>>>> ------
>>>>
>>>> "taken out of context, i must seem so strange" -- ani
>>>> http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/
>>>> http://www.danah.org/
>>>> @zephoria
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>> http://www.aoir.org/
>>
>
>
>
>-- 
>
>Kim De Vries
>
>http://kdevries.net/blog/
>_______________________________________________
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--------------------------------------
Caroline Haythornthwaite
Professor, Graduate School of Library and Information Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 501 East Daniel St., Champaign IL 61820
haythorn at illinois.edu OR haythorn at uiuc.edu