[Air-L] facebook, twitter and annoyances

[richard.ling at telenor.com]

There is an interesting tension between the messages we send and receive in the intimate sphere that has a very concrete common frame of reference ("can you pick up the kids today at school"), the somewhat broader sphere of special groups (job, free time activities, etc) that can take for granted a common frame of reference, and then the wide wide world of other people ("I am sure that the millions of people following me on Twitter will be glad to know I have received the Nobel prize in . . . ) It is hard, and perhaps impossible to frame comments that are equally relevant for the different groups. Where some comments are intended as an invitation for interaction, others are more along the lines of promotion. It might be interesting to think about power differences between the senders and receivers. Who do you feel that you can send a response to a tweet and engage them in some type of meaningful interaction (though the medium is not really set up in that way) and who would likely not respond to any reply?  

Rich L. 


-----Original Message-----
From: air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org [mailto:air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Caroline Haythornthwaite
Sent: 1. november 2009 11:59
To: KMV; aoir list
Subject: Re: [Air-L] facebook, twitter and annoyances

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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>
>
>
>-- 
>
>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

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