Who is monitoring who in a world of online social networking?

This article is the first in a three part series raising issues arising from the proliferation and increasing usage of online social media. Recently Nielson research reported a tripling of the time Internet users spend on social networking sites in the space of a year, with social networking now accounting for 17% of time spent online. Similarly, based on the statistics from Alexa.com, the combined daily reach of 3 popular social network websites (facebook.com, myspace.com and twitter.com) is 24% of daily internet consumption with facebook.com accounting for 17%. This magnitude of growth alone, suggests a significant impact of these networks on the lives of individual members.

Recent reports by both Comscore and Nielson appear to show that social networking and social networking sites are now the most popular online activities;

"social networking was the second most popular online activity in the U.K. based on average time spent per user (4.6 hours), trailing only instant messaging (8.6 hours)" (Comscore, 2009).

Recently released research for the US by Nielson (2009) found that americans spend over 4 1/2 hours (on average per month) on facebook, more than any other site (of the top 10 brands) on the Internet. Thus, both the Nielson and Comscore reports say that Social networking, in particular facebook, is the most popular online activity in both the UK and the States. There is some difference though with Nielson and Comscore regarding time spent on these with Nielson quoting 6 hours for Facebook and Comscore quoting 4.6 hours for social networking sites in aggregate. But if you look at the nielson figures, its shows only facebook manages 6 hours with myspace, bebo hovering around 2 hours. Thus, in reality, the figures for both studies would seem to correlate. And, it seems to indicate that UK users of facebook spend more time on facebook than those in the US.

These figures demonstrate the need for substantive social research on the emerging role of social networking and social media on individuals and society. The next article entitled 'symbolic violence on facebook', will look at facebook through the lens of social capital and cultural capital theories. To begin with though, this article will briefly raise some possible issues and concerns regarding the phenomenon of individuals having increased available 'evidence' of their social network and it's activity.

There are a host of new capabilities emerging with the social web. What technology may now be facilitating is a nation of procumers (granted the figure still ranges between 1 and 5%). For the majority however, what we are now mostly seeing is a nation of monitors. This may even go beyond monitoring the 'background noise' of ones social network, seen as vital in sustaining virtual communities and enhancing offline social relations (Komito, Bates, 2009). What I wish to highlight at the extreme or 'ideal type', are a group of users in surveillance and gathering explicit analytical data; on those interested in their online identity or 'ego', often unbeknownst to the users interested (granted this is not the case for the vast majority of users). It has historically been the case that companies with an online presence should monitor and analyse traffic to their sites for pragmatic instrumental goals of optimising service, targeting users for products. However, now even beyond bloggers catching on to the practice of analysing site traffic, personal users with an online presence are now analysing traffic emerging from within their; 'personal networks' (see Wellman, 2001, 2002, 2003) or 'networks of sociability' (see Castells, 2004). This inevitably opens up questions as to how technologies (imbued with social and cultural values etc.) are in tandem with users; changing the nature of social relations?, changing privacy? and changing the nature of mind, consciousness and identity?. There is indeed a significant and growing body of academic research and literature addressing such questions as the 'impact' of technology on society from a macro to micro level. What I specifically wish to tackle in this article concerns the ability for individuals to explicitly, quantitatively and continuously survey and analyse their social position, social relations and those of others within personal networks. This may go beyond the traditional social monitoring, reflecting and theorising which individuals have (to various degrees) practiced on ones social network. Individuals for the first time in history, now have recorded evidence of their social networks activity, right there in front of them.

For instance, social network sites, now mean individuals can monitor online the relations that one's alters (ties such as friends, acquaintances etc) have with each other. McGuinness (2009) suggests that perhaps this provides an alternative to gathering information on ones ties, through hearsay and gossip. Could this in-turn reduce tainted or biased information that would come from alters? This would indicate increased information certainty. On the other hand, having exposure to tie communications that one isn't a part of, may increase uncertainty about ones importance and stature in one's social network? The issue here is that online social networks may have consequences for social relations on a level previously unseen in society and could make redundant sociological understandings about the dynamics of social relations. But this can go even further:

To take the case of twitter. Users now have several means of monitoring traffic to one's profile and the impact of their tweets. For instance, one can set up an account with one of the tinyurl companies and track traffic to ones posted links. Secondly, individuals can track whether status updates affects the number of people following them. Individuals can watch the diffusion of popular tweets through 'Retweets'. Users can monitor and use analytic tools to analyse their follower count and the demographic data etc. on those followers. This kind of activity by some users on twitter, is likely strongly correlated with their particular use of twitter. For instance, those who take the time to analyse and monitor activity to their profile, likely do so, because there is some value to them beyond mere curiosity. Nontheless, we can see trends emerging, such as programs on facebook that can sidestep privacy rules, by using apps to analyse available data for; 'popularity', 'friends interest in your profile' etc. Such statistics are based on who has posted on each others walls and commented on photos etc.

A larger and larger proportion of Internet users are becoming techno-savy and adept at using available Internet services. The increased interconnectedness of individuals disparate data on the web, and a crop of advancements in online technologies facilitating this, means that individuals can have easy access to information on individuals not in their everyday lives (pipl.com etc.). It is not uncommon for individuals to google a first date, or to monitor those they no-longer see. The past may importantly ground the present, but there may be times when its more helpful to leave past physical relationships in the past. Individuals may diminish consciousness of their present situations, their immediate experience. Here, the consciousness of place gives way to the 'space of flows' (see; Castells, 1998). Individual's attention can be more easily stretched across time and space.

Beyond recorded evidence of ones social relations and alters, we are now seeing software such as twitanalyser emerging that allows individuals analyse online identities. There is the potential for psychological traits, truth, consistency etc. to be gaged based on available information on the web. For the moment, the phenomenon of analysing online identities has been mainly confined to micro-blogging sites 'status updates', but there is no reason why it will stop there. Such information might be of interest to recruiters, workplace managers, schoolground bullies and prospective friends and colleagues. Previously, this kind of analytic data was available on website traffic of interest to those managing websites, whereby e-commerce sites and others found value in having data on traffic locations, referrals etc. Now, everyone can 'know' this kind of information 'if' one wishes.

Questions of the possible consequences of monitoring and quantitatively analysing our ego-centric networks arise:

-Curtails our own intuition and imagination?

-Makes us more instrumental in our social relations?

-Makes us more instrumental to ensuring social presence online?

-Addiction to checking our social network's 'background noise'?

-Reduces the expressive and affective nature of communication?

-Adds complexity to managing our social lives?

-Adds the potentiality of paranoia and uncertainty with ones close ties?

-Means we become grounded in the reality of our social position, reputation and social capital rather than our perceived or imagined position and reputation?

These are just a few of the myriad of possible questions which arise and which can be seen as perhaps positive or negative. We are principally dealing with the potentiality of users having more explicit hard information on others, and ones relations with others. Furthermore, we can now observe how ones action affects those relations in new and altered ways. This seems to point to the notion of a more individualised atomised person, with perhaps greater attentiveness and 'sense' of control(ing) of their relation with 'their' world, inline with trends theorised by Wellman and with observations by Putnam.

Bibliography:

references to follow shortly...

Copyright © 2009 Shane McLoughlin. This article may not be resold or redistributed without prior written permission.

Twitter and it's data free for all....

The rise of Twitter
Twitter is expanding and expanding fast. A flurry of news coverage and hype about the product, particularly in the last 3 months, has seen users flock to the service. Twitter is seen to offer enormous potential, information can be filtered by content, location, keyword etc., opening up the realms of how data is used online in real time. This is in tandem with the numerous benefits of openness discussed below. However, Twitter still has some way to go. It has yet to come to terms with its own potential and how those possibilities should be steered and constrained. The service recently made some small developments to its site, with a 'trend' and 'search' facility added. However, the sophistication of its privacy and account settings is still limited. Thus, it has yet to put more control back in users hand, with regard to how their data is used and by whom. At present, it is an all or nothing affair, you're "open" or you're "private"!!. This begs the following questions, should account holders have more control over their data? If so, why should this be the case? Is openness itself constraining what people will say? Finally, If users have more control, will this stifle the success of the service?

Why openness?
The Twitter model is built largely around individuals posting short 140 character status updates, replies or retweets on any range of topic imaginable. Individuals can find and follow any other user on the service, ranging from friends to common interests, to celebrities etc. The great thing about twitter is its 'openness'. Most individuals choose to keep their profile public to ensure that they can be found by like-minded individuals, or that ongoing conversations can be picked up by interested parties etc. It means individuals have that feeling that someone out there is listening, even if it is just the possibility of feeling part of something. It is a forum for expression of the mind, even if expression is mundane. It is also a means to 'contribute' one's time, knowledge and experience and is thus an avenue of 'meaning' for individuals.

Openness ensures that those with something to offer others can more easily be heard. It engenders the possibility for more connection, collaboration, relationship and even community formation 'without' boundaries. By focusing on the content of messages and less on the full personality, it provides a different kind of social formation. The loud, influential and dominant personality may not make for interesting dialogue. Too many annoying tweets from a user and one can easily unfollow with the click of the mouse. This levels the playing field for users in many respects, as well as increasing the possibility of connection based on interest and not by persuasion. However, not everyone wishes for this openness. There is the option to set your profile 'private' in order to close your information to only those with whom you've allowed follow you.

Interpreting your past online
Full openness has its price though, Twitter first launched in March 2006, and since then, an archive of user data has slowly being amounting for all to access. Hundreds of your messages may (or may not) be carefully vetted by you, but one thoughtless twitter update may be enough to get you in to trouble at any point in the future. This may be nothing more than friends misinterpreting and taking offence to an update. But it could be something more: Recently a US cop had his status updates on Facebook and Myspace used as evidence against him in a gun trial on grounds of the accused acquittal. What was interesting about this case is how status updates became utilised and crucially 'interpreted' by the Jury. This highlights how information may be interpreted and placed into multiple contexts by whoever reads the information. Employers, even potential collaborators, may selectively choose just one suspect twitter update among hundreds as 'proof' of character, or misintrepret one's online ego as holistically representative of the individual. Twitter means your online past and identity will always be there online, waiting to be interpreted and analysed.

Analyse this!
You may think that with hundreds of recorded messages, it would be uncumbersome for anyone to want to thrall through your past data. But with twitter, software by third parties is springing up to offer just that: Twitter analyzer is just one of the free online applications available that allows you to analyse the data of "any" twitter user with an open account (hence the majority of twitter user). The bounds of what can be achieved with Twitter analyzer is limited. But it opens numerous possibilities. For beyond harmless apps like Twitscoop, which scrape status updates in order to form twitter 'trending topics' and 'buzz words', your data can be analysed in isolation or in tandem with others, in any number of ways, for any number of purposes, and by ANYONE. Twitter apps may emerge (if they don't already exist) to 'profile' individuals; to elucidate personality, truth and inconsistency, track record, literacy, interests etc. etc. etc. This is alongside the likely emergence of targeted advertising etc, and data mining of information, in order to make twitter a viable business model.

Openness on whose terms?
At present twitter has a very lax attitude to its data. If you have your profile public, your data is a free for all. If it's private, its between you, your vetted followers and twitter. This means that Twitter's so called openness may not be so open. People are constantly vetting and reflecting on what information they post on twitter. They may do it out of shyness, cautiousness, personal branding, or foresight etc. Twitter is open for many, but not too open. It's very openness curtails what dialogue does occur online. As users become aware of the ways in which their data can be used, this may further curtail individual expression. Thus, should Twitter not increase the range of choices with regard 'openness' and 'privacy'. What I would like to see is the possibility of users having the choice to make private their archive of data. For instance, what if only your recent updates were set as public? What if twitter made it difficult for those updates to be scraped by third party offerings? What if you could make replies only visible to who you follow? What if you could automatically make messages with certain 'keywords' private? What if you could make certain messages time sensitive and private after a certain period? What if you could make some status updates private to yourself? Thus, the bounds of privacy can be opened up. Will it constrain the services success however? I do not believe so, if too much openness is stifling expression and conversation on twitter, than increasing the scope of openness versus privacy, and doing it in an uncumbersome way; would perhaps increase use of the service. This choice may be the business model Twitter hopes for...


Copyright © 2009 Shane McLoughlin. This article may not be resold or redistributed without prior written permission.