[Air-L] facebook, twitter and annoyances

[Barry Wellman]

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.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>
> >
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> ------
>
> "taken out of context, i must seem so strange" -- ani
> http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/
> http://www.danah.org/
> @zephoria
>
>
>