social networks

How do people display social networks in everyday life (that is, not online)? Give 2 concrete, specific examples. Why do they do this? Looking at this display as a signal, what is the quality it is inferring? What are the costs of making this signal? The benefits? Is there a cost to the receiver if it is not honest?

offline, there are tangible, reliable representations of bodies and identities; online, disembodiment complicates the matter. let's explore the physical space: two examples of real-world displays of social networks:

someone may signal his or her social networking status by surrounding themselves with a certain group of people that they find attractive and they with whom he or she would want to be publicly seen. this is basically a clique structure (throwback to highschool and beyond); let's envision the display of an indie-rock chick in cambridge. she wants to show that she's well-connected to the insiders of the local music scene. repeatedly showing up to lots of concerts (the middle east, tt the bears, paradise rock club), clubs, or parties with a core group of friends (all distinctively dressed to simultaneously fit in but attract attention) gives a public image that she is in-the-know about local music shows and has the social capital and real capital (covers are expensive!) to invest into the scene. she might become familiar with the bouncer or bartender or managers of the club, and perhaps befriend some of the bands or crew (ever the eager groupie). she has a greater chance of spotting somebody she knows at a restaurant, walking down the street, or at a random party... if so, then she can say 'ooh, didn't you love last night's set at tt's?' and then introduce everybody around, illustrating her well-connectedness. it gives her high social connectivity while also showcasing her urban / trend awareness in the city.

i would guess that this girl wants to be very much publicly in the scene because it offers security in a scene (one she deems as attractive, cool), garners higher popularity status in a large group sector (if she's familiar, or at least in close periphery, to many), and allows her to connect to people in a high social places (she could probably get an invitation to a famed group's afterparty if she knows the right people).

the quality inferred by others might be: she's very dedicated to the scene with time, money, and effort spent on clothes, music, and social arranging. however, it might not be too blatant because she dresses in seemingly thriftstore wares (though they could have been right off the rack at urban outfitters, merchandised versions of cool) or digs through secondhand music stores, so the indie look may seem more 'natural' than it is. even though dive bar / clubs aren't exactly landsdowne street, there's still an underwritten code of what's acceptable to be considered 'truly indie' or fit for the clique. if she's everywhere, people will think she's well-known and acceptable to the standard; being friends with her (chick as bridge) might make it easier for them to be friends with more exclusive people in the social circle.

costs: monetary costs include 'costume' (buying clothes, shoes, glasses, hair, makeup that fits in), admission expenses (cover, drinks, coat check), transportation, communication to friends (cellphone minutes, txtmsgs), buying music (cds, bootlegs, promos), and perhaps equipment (ipod, sound system, computer for mp3s). time costs include finding a concert, scanning the local publications on shows, spending time at a concert or party, listening to the actual music (the scene is supposedly based on music after all, though it might seem more like a popularity contest or fashion show at times), shopping for merchandise. time is a huge investment, especially when coordinating attendance at events with multiple people (where/when/how to meet? after/before events?), and manouevring the weekend scene (on constant contact on cellphone on where the sickest party is around the city). also, maybe it's not to cool to hang out at 'unacceptable' places; there's a political agenda against mass media, popular culture, and anything antithetical to the indie. imagine the horror of being caught browsing the sale department of abercrombie + fitch! or hanging out with your favorite sorority. there's a (loosely, but not too loose) defined script to follow. another cost might be that 'friends' might just be those who want a relationship with her to get tight with another one of her connections without caring too much with her directly.

benefits: clearly, this girl gets to know a lot of people, and earn the respect from others when they see she's consistently in the scene and accompanied by people that already are respected. popularity is a benefit, along with social events to attend to even meet more people. she can be one of the first to hear new music tracks or be invited to special listening parties or concerts. others want to know her to know others.

costs to receiver of dishonest signal: if this chick says she's gone camping with bright eyes or knows the staff at the middle east, she seems very tightly connected. or, if at a club, she talks to everybody like they're her close friend, she may seem more popular than she actually is. a cost to a receiver might be if the receiver is a genuine music enthusiast, but this chick is really all about the fashion and the social capital of the scene rather than the music, then the receiver might feel betrayed or feel like the 'authentic indie scene' is being infiltrated by wannabes.

second scenario: tess wants to display her social mavenness through a signal of popularity: constant use of her cellphone. she's maxed out her contacts/phonebook on her phone, incoming calls arrive constantly, or she's seen chatting away by many onlookers. between classes, after work, in cafes, while shopping, while driving, waiting for the bus, she's on her cell, either talking about casual events or setting up times to meet up with friends. it's more often than not that passersby see her on the phone, and those next to her (either strangers or companions) might be able to listen in on her end of the conversations. whenever she tries to call someone, it takes her more time than the usual breed to navigate through her hefty contact list.

quality: by being on the phone constantly, (virtually tied to at least one person at that time) tess displays her popularity, and thus her relationship status with others becomes highly valued. an observer might infer that she's a very busy girl, so anyone who gets in touch with her directly might be privileged since her time is limited. another quality might be that she's very audacious to be flaunting her private conversations into the public (i.e. the extremely annoying caller whose misdirected cellphone intimacy is diffused throughout the space) and isn't terribly considerate. a more extreme inference is that she might also be seen as gossipy, wasteful (of time + money spent on cellphone convos), or promiscuous (in that call-girl kind of way). pun unintended, of course.

costs: monetary costs include the actual phone, the technological accessories (attractive faceplate, chain, ringtone, headset, etc.), calling plan + minutes, and phone software. other costs include attention spent talking (even while multitasking, it increases cognitive load), time organizing / augmenting / managing contact list, mentally managing all the different calls, and being looked down upon from others who don't approve of her using the phone in different environments or situations. if her phone rings unexpectedly during a movie or group event, she'll cause disruption and suffer a momentary pang of embarassment or shame. another cost might be an addiction of sorts to the physical object, the phone, which connects her to her network. she's be a slave; it's impossible to ignore the ring; must answer all calls to ensure that all her friends can rely on her to talk, and therefore continue calling to prolong the chatty, popular image. tess may become dependent on others to pick up as well; will it be frustrating to find that no one's home or the voicemail kicks in? it's an addictive cycle.

benefits: talking is real-time and tangible in the auditory sense; even though the networking is remote, the human voice carries rich-enough expression. cellphones are a relatively cost-effective and convenient way to keep in touch, anytime of the day, anywhere. if you meet someone and want to contact them later, it's simple to add them to your contact list and be able to access them easily. she is also signalling that she is easily accessible (as in, she has the phone with her at all times); however, if she'll be on the line already or screening her calls, therein lies the exclusivity of her contact.

costs to receiver of dishonest signal: phone talk doesnt necessarily correspond to quality talk. people can be on the phone and waste hours on chitchat or 'what are you doing now?' sorts of things. she could very well be busy setting up dates or dealing with engaging events, but tess might be scratching the surface of many contacts at one time, not really involving herself in any one relationship deeply, but juggling herself among the crowd. the costs to the receiver perhaps may be a shoddy, inauthentic friendship, a disposable kind of convenience ("hey, joe's on the line, can i call you back later, thanks!"), or not being to access tess in real life (the point of it all, right?) because she's so busy on the phone.

Identity in the real world is faceted: different aspects of our personality are expressed in different circumstances and around different people. For some of us, these differences are relatively minor, and bringing together people from different areas of our lives is not a problem. For others of us, these different facets are incompatible, and bringing them together is undesireable. How is this addressed in the design of today's SNSs? How might future designs address this?

well, i think social networking sites that have a limited, specific scope / audience / usership are far more successful than broader ones, such as friendster or orkut. i especially think that thefacebook.com (which was hatched by a former classmate of mine in college and entrepreneured to terrifically wonderful reception) is a particularly effective networking site because your network is (mostly) limited to the college or university that you're in attendance. it uses your .edu email address as an account indicator, and limits the profiles that you can view to those in your school. after they expanded from harvard-only to thefacebook.com on hundreds of schools, you can claim inter-university friends, but there is definitely noticeably limited access to outsider schools versus your own.

as a student using this site, i found it infinitely more useful than friendster because the likelihood of stumbling upon someone i knew was far greater (than the general populace as a whole), and the shared locale and situation enabled more relevant 'foci' (like residential house, academic concentration, or specific student clubs / extracurriculars). there were a few professors and lecturers that had profiles on thefacebook (the only restriction was the email address domain, after all), but the awkwardness that would arise on more general sites ("whoa, my professor's friends are into that?") didn't occur because the profile was still 'academic' in nature. the prof's profile would be something that he or she would be comfortable sharing with other students and teachers alike since the network is restricted to academic domains. a scope such as a university is wide enough that it encompasses a large population and the vast diversity within it, but limited enough that one wouldn't feel too uncomfortable with certain types of information leaking into the wrong audience.

in sites such as friendster, anyone with an email address can join. you're trying to unite the world in this neat little networked structure, but the crossover can be messy indeed.

for thoughts on future design, i think specificity and categorization of people might be the way to avoid gross generality. thefacebook.com is clever to use the mostly-reliable signal (or is it a cue?) of an .edu email address to designate someone to an academic community. so, one way to corral a group is to authenticate all user's email addresses and create a domained network (so if you had a work email address, you could be part of the corporate circle). this would encourage people to maintain several email addresses, one for every facet of their life that they would like to reach out to others about. clearly, these addresses would have to possess some sort of value (as in, an established domain like a company or an organization or a community), instead of any freebie account like hotmail or gmail. each facet's entry email address, therefore, must be earned (such as an mit.edu account, for example).

dealing with all the different sides of oneself can be tiring to manage; people are complicated, and tread in so many different social groups. however, in real life, if someone wants to keep things totally separate (e.g. social, work, school, and family life), they work hard to do so by compartmentalizing their life; they'll have multiple identities to don as well.

compartmentalizing or breaking up the facets do have its costs, though. sometimes the crossover can be serendipitous or pleasantly surprising ("wow, i didn't know my dad's co-worker's bandmate is in my math class"). would it be possible to avoid the weird crossovers while allowing the cool-yet-not-embarrassing ones to come through? i kind of like that. maybe there needs to be a cultural shift altogether to remove the awkwardness of dipping into places unforeseen... we're all human. we all have different faces of ourselves; is there a cultural shame in sharing that? perhaps it might be beneficial for your boss to stumble across the fact that you like oldskool kung fu films. same goes if a student discovers his professor likes to bake pastries and rocks out to the flaming lips. i think this knowledge makes people more real, and not appear so uniformish in each different realm of life. we individually may not choose or prefer to know these incidental factoids about someone else, but they're still part of that person whether it's appropriate or not.

Describe or sketch part of a social network known to you (e.g. your friends, family, acquaintances in classes, etc. - feel free to use pseudonyms or describe a network from your past, such as high school, for privacy). Networking sites use unnuanced and symmetrical links - in your description, what more nuanced description of these links would you include? For instance, there are different types of relationships - parent-child, friend-friend - and different strengths, and different flows of support and information. What of these more nuanced descriptions could be used in a publicly articulated space, and which could not?

i could describe one social network: my former college orchestra, the HRO. we all had at least one shared activity / focus--i.e. rehearsing and performing music together--and we were all students (with rare exceptions), but there were people from all different undergrad classes (with an occasional grad student here and there), different academic concentrations, different instruments, and completely diverse activities other than HRO. some lived in my residential house, some were in my classes. there were some social events, but one could totally just go to the mandatory sessions and never really interact with anyone else. i made friends, but since the times spent together were in formal rehearsal, true quality social time would have to be arranged outside of the structured activity time.

some relationship descriptions i would define within this network: stand-partner! there is such a close, intimate, professional, goofy, undescribable relationship one has with a stand-partner. it's like roommate crossed with partner-in-crime with lifesaver; there's not really anything else like it. :)

i would define section-leader --> section member, and section member --> section member because the section leaders have a professional + leadership role over their little slice of the pie. the section-leaders tend to also be the unofficial section boosters and section morale leaders, too. inter-section community can always be stronger, and hanging out with your fellow instrumenters in section unify both in spirits and in sound.

another definition: those-who-welcomed-me-into-HRO --> me. or more simply, a mentor role. as a new member to a group, there are some existing members who answer your little questions and help you feel comfortable in the setting. they're the bridge between you and the group you'll eventually claim as your own.

people-i-admire. this is a mixture of social + professional + personal realm that might boost morale all around. admire is different from friend in that you may or may not know this person, but you know enough to make an initial positive judgment about them.

people-i-stare-at-during-rehearsal-but-have-never-talked-to. the orchestra is so large + compartmentalized (quite physically; the strings and the brass are on opposite sides of the stage always) that there are those across the room who aren't terribly familiar, but pique your curiosity. this is sort of an 'awareness' but not really friendship.

then you have the more popular things like classmate, housemate, shared majors, etc. basically, the meat + potatoes of the more generic sites, the 'we have ____ in common' underliner.

and *then* you have your actual friends, who you would honestly claim true friendships with. you hang out outside of HRO, you call or email, etc. whew.

i think that all of these could be viably public; it might be more fun if the people-i-stare-at one were constricted to those in your section (then there would be a collective understanding, as the second violins nod knowingly in one direction), but there's nothing private about it. anyone outside of the orchestra wouldn't quite understand the subtleties of some of the relationships within the orchestra because it's such a festering, incestuous, understatedly political enterprise. since i have limited the scope of the network to just this one focus, all members share the communal understanding.

on a side note, musicians have no shame.

Feld proposes that people have particular interests, common friends and pursuits, etc. that function as "foci" - and that connections are made when people with common foci are brought together. Some foci are highly constraining (such as being in the same family or research group) while others are lightly constraining (sharing a neighborhood or a popular taste) . Re-examine the social network you described. Can you apply this model to explain some of the groupings?

well, the underlying focus of it all is 'currently a member of and performing in harvard-radcliffe orchestra'. so that's the foundation on which everything can be laid. this focus itself defines the network.

stand-partner: the focus is at once physical, emotional, professional, and personal. you sit next to each other for at least five hours every week, for semesters at a time. you rejoice at the beauty and growl at the impossible in the score together. the little things like turning pages for the other, or being the one responsible for bringing the pencil or scribbling in notes creates a closeness that intimate (you must coordinate), yet parallel (the active focus is on the music). so i would envision the focus to be "making the same music in each other's physical immediacy"! music creation itself is incredibly emotional, and here you share it with your nextdoor neighbor, even if you may share nothing else (including friendship).

section-leader + fellow section members: the focus is "together we're one voice" and solidarity that arises from pride of one's own instrument. simultaneously well-defined musically as well as spatially (since a section's members all sit together), this focus becomes quite constrained by the physical and emotional binds.

mentors: a more ambiguous title, but definitely called for. the focus develops into "ways to ease in (or out?) of the HRO." the focus is bridging the gap. much less constrained; i doubt that the mentors would have a mini-network among themselves. it's more an individual mentors --> mentees setup that would crisscross randomly. however, maybe the newbies would have their own network, but one that they would eventually outgrow as they found themselves comfortable within the group.

people-i-admire: the foci here are more flexible or defined-on-spot: admiration in terms of musicality, fashion sense, overall friendliness, volunteer generosity, etc. basically, first impressions or received signals would find their place here. definitely a more personal social network statement.

people-i-stare-at: the focus exists with respect to one's own piqued curiosity. highly subjective, highly personal, but might be the perfect label for those people in our vicinity that we're even uncomfortable calling acquaintances.

people-i-share-something-with. highly unpersonal but easily definable foci: activities, dorm, major, classes, etc. these are constrained and most of their value is held in "convenience." unpersonal common things are an easy way to springboard to richer relationships.

people-i-share-something-personal-with: personally defined + meaningful foci. favorite foods, bands, movies can crop up; also, shared social circles enmeshed with other individuals (who may or may not be in the orchestra). these foci can be (but not required to be) varied, diverse, and be independent from the orchestra itself.

What are the benefits of making it more costly to add links in a social networking site?

one thing that's terribly annoying about the i-need-to-amass-as-many-friends-as-possible game is that you get friend requests from people you hardly glanced at in chem class, but now they conveniently remember you when stocking their "friend" inventory. you feel as though a human relationship, a friendship, is now a valued commodity, something that matters more in quantity than in quality. if adding links were costly, then the flippant, freebie friend requests would only be offered for those who really mattered (as they were worth the cost).

one benefit is relieving the social awkwardness of being asked to consent a friendship by someone you really don't think deserves the title. you don't want to condone its incorrectness, but rejecting the request feels like rejecting the actual person. it's nothing personal, but sometimes people just aren't exactly friends in any shape or form... the thought of rejecting someone's gracious and generous invitation seems so heartless, so you reluctantly condone the relationship. if the majority of the requests were from real friends, this internal struggle wouldn't occur as often.

another benefit is that a person's visible tally of friends would be more accurate than they are counted in the current SNS systems. each friend listed on someone's profile would more reliably indicate that a relationship actually exists, instead of some weird tie that is defined online but is ambiguous or even nonexistent offline. right now, if someone has a high number of friends, you can't easily tell if it's because the person really *does* have a large socially active network, or if they just spent a lot of time inviting every person they ever knew, ever?

if adding links were costly, then social networks would be more optimal, pruned, strategically maintained. if each user had a tight, accurate social network without a lot of 'friend fluff', then the bridging mechanism would improve in its usability, convenience, and managability. right now, if you go to friendster, it'll say something incredulous like "you have 593,285 people in your nth degree network." in an ideal setting, that number would be much lower (i dont have time to analyze 593,285 profiles!), and i would be assured that each individual on my 1st, 2nd, 3rd degrees would be an actual person reflective of their network status. as in, the connections between the 1st<-->2nd<-->3rd degrees of contacts would be qualified and reliable. i would have a better social credibility in contacting the higher-degreed individuals in my expanded network.