The Media

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Nov. 4, 2009

Texting and Relationships

Posted by Peter Boumgarden under Culture, Psychology, The Media
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David Brooks recent op-ed in the NYTimes is provocative in arguing for a link between the growth of text-messaging and the decline of committed love. Specifically:

Technology, especially cellphone and texting technology, dissolves obstacles. Suitors now contact each other in an instantaneous, frictionless sphere separated from larger social institutions and commitments.

People are thus thrown back on themselves. They are free agents in a competitive arena marked by ambiguous relationships. Social life comes to resemble economics, with people enmeshed in blizzards of supply and demand signals amidst a universe of potential partners.

The opportunity to contact many people at once seems to encourage compartmentalization, as people try to establish different kinds of romantic attachments with different people at the same time.

It seems to encourage an attitude of contingency. If you have several options perpetually before you, and if technology makes it easier to jump from one option to another, you will naturally adopt the mentality of a comparison shopper.

A few bloggers have taken issue with Brook’s analysis. Matthew Yglesias writes that love really hasn’t changed that much, and in the ways it has changed has not necessarily been for the worse (cue reference to love and relationship in Mad Men). He also cites the attached visual on the growth of cell-phone use and sarcastically points to the absurdity of arguing for a direct relationship between love’s decline and technological growth (0 bad relationships -> 95% over the last 15 years?). Screen shot 2009-11-04 at 10.34.31 AM

Ezra Klein takes a different rebuttal approach in pointing to how technology played a role in the development of a committed relationship with his current girlfriend:

Columns like Brooks’s irk me because they demean not only my lived experiences, but those of everyone I know. To offer a slightly more modern rebuttal, Sunday was my one-year anniversary with my girlfriend. A bit more than a year ago, we first met, the sort of short encounter that could easily have slipped by without follow-up. A year and a week ago, she sent me a friend request on Facebook, which makes it easy to reach out after chance meetings. A year and five days ago, we were sending tentative jokes back-and-forth. A year and four days ago, I was steeling myself to step things up to instant messages. A year and three days ago, we were both watching the “Iron Chef” offal episode, and IMing offal puns back-and-forth, which led to our first date. A year ago today, I was anxiously waiting to leave the office for our second date.

In general, I like Brook’s article, but don’t have to take it the whole way to see its general point. Technology does allow us to connect with a greater quantity of people (send out mass twitters, be followed by a multitude of people on facebook, text multiple people at the same time), but along with such potential comes less accountability between our digital profile and the actual way we interact with people. Technologies like texting and twitter create a potential to navigate multiple budding relationships at once in a way that was more difficult in previous years.

At the same time, taking Yglesias’ point the actual correspondence between technology and relational decline will obviously not be linear, and to Klein’s point, technology is somewhat neutral in that it might be used for either good or bad (see: Einstein’s role in the development of nuclear technology…)

The kernel of truth in Brook’s article is his assertion that cultivating a posture of openness to options, in this case enabled by technology, can be detrimental to investing in a particular person. Think of it with careers… leaving oneself open to multiple options is a great hedge strategy, but at a certain point one has to open a specific door, move through it at the expense of others, with all the risk that comes along with such choice. Brooks is right that these technologies allow people to hedge in relationships for a longer period of time. In reality, this might be a good thing seen by lower rates of divorce for people who marry later. Nevertheless, its more than fair to ask whether hedge strategies are ineffective for building commitment once one is in a relationship, and whether such approaches carry-on with inertia from singleness to the time when one is in a relationship. In other words, can the guy who spends years texting to hedge in the relational market quickly drop such habits when he enters into a committed relationship?

 

ADDENDUM- For the nerds among us, there might be a few questions that would be relevant to this debate from a sociological perspective:

  1. Does the availability of texting lead to increased a) hedging strategies/ behavior, and/or b) hedging mentality in relationships
  2. Do hedging strategies prior to relationships correspond with greater hedging mentality once in a relationship (e.g. does this mentality hold with inertia)?
  3. Does a hedging mentality negatively influence relationship development/ lead to destructive relationship outcomes (e.g. divorce)?
 

Jul. 16, 2009

So(cial)… it’s looks like Google Reader is making some changes

Posted by Peter Boumgarden under Culture, The Media
[6] Comments 
Who likes what?

Who likes what?

Because I study networks and innovation, by default, I should love Google Reader’s recent changes to build in increased social integration/ networking into this rss feeder.  And, to be honest, I do… for the most part.

First, a bit of background. I have been obsessed with Google Reader for some time now, and I really as though it has made me a more informed ‘citizen of the world’ (probably more pretentious as well given that I use phrases like citizen of the world). As a supplement to main stream media, I love getting multiple takes/perspectives on the news, for the same reason I like getting multiple tweets on the Tour de France– diversity is bliss when it comes to perspective.

As for the new GR features, I like that I can search out interesting and intelligent people and see what they are reading. If Amartya Sen has a reader page, I would love to see the articles that he thinks are worth reading. Same goes for Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, and Cass Sunstein. You can learn a lot by seeing what these people think is interesting.  I also like being able to target my sharing of an article to a small group of freinds, rather than my entire set of followers. I think this is a decent way to simulate online ‘reading’ groups… something I see as especially worthwhile given the dispersion of close friends across the globe.

And yet, with all that on the table, one feature I am sold on is the new ‘liking’ tags. In the new reader, you can now link to articles you ‘like,’ and Google will compile everyone’s tags and list a count at the top of the post. For example, the Marginal Revolution post above had 6 ‘likes’ when I read it this morning. In a world where the bloggosphere can already be an echo-chamber of like minded voices, I wonder if ‘like-tagging’ only amplifies this problem by focusing our attention onto the attention of others.

As an example, when I get behind in my rss reader feel (multiple unread articles to choose from), I often look for find interesting pieces before I have to archive them all and start a fresh. Now, in scanning, if I can now find that a specific Marginal Revolution post is universally ‘liked,’ I will have a tendency to focus my attention there, using it as a shortcut to save time and effort of reading everything else. In this way, liking tags makes Google Reader function more like a market, ideally with high quality posts getting more attention.

But is this market rational? Or, more specifically, is it still a rational system to identify high value contributions if a majority of people– or even a significant minority– use short-cut strategy described above? Will highly liked posts be higher quality contributions, or just products of a short-cut search gone awry? And from a learning perspective, if I think a post is likable beforehand, will I be more predisposed to like it in reading? The research on the psychology of evaluation seems to suggest yes. Together, this means that we might all be more likely to read the same stuff, all the while tending to homogeneously view it as interesting, regardless of its content.

At the end of the day, I don’t think I would change Google’s approach, as I think it is an interesting addition to a nice free product. And the reality is, I will more than likely continue to pay attention to what everyone likes. I only fear that it will make me just like everyone else!

 

May. 29, 2009

Internet Communication: Simulation or Innovation?

Posted by Peter Boumgarden under Culture, Miscellaneous, The Media
[5] Comments 

Whether we like it or not, Google has significant control over the way we live in a virtual world. Their programs have changed the way we communicate (gmail), search for information (google.com), get directions (maps.google.com), and collaborate with others (docs.google.com), among other things. Their forthcoming project Wave is Google’s new attempt to influence communication over and above g-chat and gmail, as demonstrated in the video above.

Tim O’Reilly summarizes the new program as ” re-imagined email and instant-messaging in a connected world, a world in which messages no longer need to be sent from one place to another, but could become a conversation in the cloud. Effectively, a message (a wave) is a shared communications space with elements drawn from email, instant messaging, social networking, and even wikis.” I agree with O’Reilly’s assessment that Wave includes some really interesting features, many of which I am very excited about as a consumer.

In an alternative vein, Alan Jacobs raises some intriguing critiques of the philosophical approach to communication with Wave– that of a strong emphasis the benefits of developing more and more nodes of communication, coupled with greater cross-integration. He writes:

I tend to think that among email, IM, Facebook, Twitter, FriendFeed, shared bookmarks on Delicious, shared RSS feeds on Google Reader, and [insert your favorite social technology here] we already have enough nodes. We already have enough shared information. Instead of asking how our existing information technologies can do more and more of what they already do well, why don’t we ask what they’re not doing well — or at all?

For me, the larger question is what our Internet tools simulate, and what ideal world they are striving towards. Do these tools mirror the ways we already approach communication, or do they offer radical departure from what we already know. If so, what are they departing from?

Take for example the way Wave approaches email and instant messaging, addressed at minute 10:30. Lars explains, “we transmit live almost character by character what I am typing. (In contrast, with) today’s instant messaging tools, you spend almost half of your time looking at it saying “stephanie is typing, she’s typing, she’s typing, she’s typing” before you can look at what she says.” In WAVE, he promises, this horrible (??) wait is eradicated with a product that offers pure unfiltered transmittal of communication– fingers to keys, mind to mind.

But again, what communication model do the designers of Wave attempt to simulate. Often creativity comes from importing something from a different approach, and applying it is a new way.  If that is the case, what is this model? In removing the social space of editing (you don’t see what I say until I am sure I want to say it), Wave initiatives a radical departure from the editing posture inherent in the writing of letters and email. Almost ironically, it appears to be simulating the way we stutter through face-to-face conversations, often lacking a filter. It is a move toward a communication model that suspends the pacing, dance, and editing of written communication.

I can’t help but wonder if people prefer communicating in this (unfiltered) way. Specifically, I wonder if people like their messages received without this editing space/ filter. Take for example the huge number of people that would prefer to write a paper over having to present the same content with public speaking. Or look at the way people do speak in public, and the form it takes. 90% of the best-man and maid of honor speeches I have seen involve a significant amount of reading word for word from a pre-written transcript.

This trepidation is understandable as unfiltered implies vulnerability. Take this example of an instant message sent to a friend.  In the normal g-chat model, the friend sees this.

(Peter is typing…)

Peter: I like you.

In the Google Wave model, the communication is qualitatively different when the internal dialogue becomes explicit.

Peter: I love you!! .. (edit back, remove exclamation points, retype)… I love you… (edit back, change wording)… I like you.

Oh how different the latter message is, as understood by the receiver! The observed process significantly changes the final product. While the final form of Google Wave will have ways to make this editing more private, as of now, the default seems to be the real time approach. While this might be less of a problem for people with a stronger internal filter (read here: NOT me), I have no doubt that this approach could at least subtlety  change the way all of us ‘speak’ and ‘listen’ in an Internet age.

 

Feb. 5, 2009

wikiJournalism

Posted by Peter Boumgarden under Economics, The Media
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Conor Friedersdorf’s recent post on the death of local coverage in the LA Times highlights the role of journalism in the unearthing stories and acting as a check on local corruption. He argues that ‘the death of the California section, and the erosion of the editorial staff, poses daunting problems for local governance in Southern California,” and goes onto highlight one such example where local (well funded, well trained) reporting unearthed a public financing scandal. Friedersdorf asks whether bloggers will be able to make up for the hole left by the disappearing of the ‘California sections’ of the world.  Comparing the journalist who uncovered the relevant story (Marosi) with a lampshape maker (Figueora) trying to do the same, Conor writes:

A newspaper reporter has the time a lampshade maker doesn’t to go down to city hall during business hours; if the City Clerk wants to charge for photocopies, the reporter can expense it to the newspaper, whereas the lampshade maker pays out of pocket; should the City Clerk refuses to hand over the documents, the reporter can have an attorney at the newspaper draft a convincing letter, and write an article in the newspaper hammering the city for breaking the law; should the city clerk dally further, the reporter can have an LA Timesattorney sue the city, and write another scathing story; and if the lawsuit drags on, he can stick it out, though that is seldom necessary, because when your legal adversary is correct on the merits, buys ink by the barrel, and demonstrates a willingness to stick things out, you rarely put them to the test.

Friedersdorf rightly highlights the disparity between the journalist’s already-in-place network of resources in a formal news organization, with those of a blogger acting on his/her own. But what if journalism followed a more open-source model, something akin to what wikipedia does for encyclopedia (like a modified version of wikinews, see criticisms for potential ways forward).

For example, while Figueora didn’t have had the time to unearth the entire story as an individual blogger, undoubtedly there would have been others interested in this story coming to light. What if Figuora were to have started a wikiJournalism entry on the corruption in city council with all his available information. Then, to the extent that this story were to have passed into the hands of the right people, they too could update with information Figueora as an individual did not have the time or energy to access.In this model, the individual source/ blogger connects and creates his/her own network of resources.Sure, wikiJournalism would be open to the potential of distortion, but several safeguards would be in place. First, open source models are highly corrective; for example, recent research shows that Wikipedia is exceptionally reliable with ‘vandalism’ often caught before it reaches the eyes of the reader.  In addition, it could also be possible for traditional journalists to move some of their time out of this type of work and into the role of a wikiJournalism information sorter, bringing the most central stories into focus, disseminating them to the appropriate editors, and resolving conflicts through fact checking.       

While it isn’t a perfect model, it does stand in between Friedersdorf’s contrast of traditional journalism v. the individual blogger, while trying to build on the strengths of each. It would also need to build on the contribution of wikinews, which I have not addressed here. But what do you think? What would it take for a model like this to resolve the coverage problems of dwindling news staff-rooms? What would be the potential hangups?

** Addendum- I think the biggest problem with wikinews in its current form is that it doesn’t have credibility in the eyes of the reader. The multiple source approach for journalism is still (understandably) viewed with suspicion, especially when it deals with immediate news as opposed to more long term sourcing (as is the case with wikipedia as an encyclopedia, when editing is appropriate over time).  But what something like wikinews were to be associated with a already legitimized source, who additionally puts resources into maintaining a level of quality on the output (by editing, fact checking, etc.).  Imagine the NY Times for example starting wikiTimes.  Would this solve some of the legitimacy problems of wikiNews?

Something I do not at all have figured out is the revenue model of this approach…