[Air-L] facebook, twitter and annoyances

[Baym, Nancy]

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