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Another way to think about a chilling effect is just the social norms that civilization and culture enforce on people. While this research (and much of the dis

Another way to think about a chilling effect is just the social norms that civilization and culture enforce on people. While this research (and much of the discussion of social network sites) focuses on the surveillance factor, society can't just have people expressing their so called real self and still function in the way it does today. So the question to me becomes where is the line drawn between free expression and societal norms enforced by our culture. Once upon a time, that line was drawn by your family and your community, people who you saw every day probably. Now, it's being drawn not just by your close contacts but likely also by the anonymous data collection of social network sites. That would seem to be the true scary part of this chilling effect, that it's no longer being enforced by people we know and interact with but instead by people who we may barely know at all as well as by the marketing and news information that we are fed through the algorithms of social networks.

FullMtlAlcoholc 10y ago
> society can't just have people expressing their so called real self and still function in the way it does today. That is a subtly insightful comment. As I am doing some self-learning on human history, I. wantes to expound on this point a bit. It is true that one of the primary objectives of societies, communities, etc., is to restrain the individual ostensibly for the greater good. In the modern era, the greater good has become conflated with those who hold power. However, before we broke out of the Malthusian trap, self-actualizing and expressing one's real self could spell doom for a community. In general, risk-averse behavior has been common among all groups that operated along the margins of survival. The sheer challenge of survival in premodern societies always constrained the behavior of the poor. Taboos and social constraints limited experimentation innovation, and self-expression. For example, the role of marriage and infidelity is the reverse of what it is today. Marriage was a contract, not an expression of love. Often, the only way to express true love was through an affair. Also, it explains the taboo on homosexuality. Since infant mortality rates were higher, couples tended to have more children than we do today. If the union didn't produce children, who would farm the next generation? This was a rational reflection of the fact that experimentation increases the variability of results. Greater variability means not only potentially greater gains but more ominously for those at the very margin of survival potentially ruinous losses. A great part of the cultural energy of poor farming societies has always been devoted to suppressing experimentation and self-expression. This repression, in effect, was their substitute for insurance policies. Personal ability and personal choice individual "pursuit of happiness," in the modern sense were suppressed by Taboos and social restrictions that have always been most emphatic among the poor. Such restrictions were usually superseded only in societies with high productivity. This makes me really thankful I was born in the modern era or I'd be doing what my father did, as he would be doing what his father did and so on.
mtnygard 10y ago
To extend your point just a bit farther: participants in social media have to also be aware of _potential_ enforcement in the possibly distant future. E.g., college kids worrying about employers, potential politicians managing their image for a future decade's voters, or threatened/marginalized populations worried about future political environments. Anyone thinking in that mode has to aggressively manage their presentation to avoid offending someone they _might_ know or who _might_ have power over them.
- drinkjuice 10y ago
  > threatened/marginalized populations worried about future political environments Including not only oneself, but all future current and future friends, lovers and offspring. But the real kicker is that ultimately, it's not just about managing your presentation, but about the (impossibility of) managing the interpretations of others, according to rules, quotas and/or programs they defined and which they will always be somewhat in the dark about. So if in doubt, if you haven't seen others say it and be rewarded for it, maybe don't say it. How's that for a great outlook.
- dwaltrip 10y ago
  It's exhausting and quite frustrating... As a 27 year old, I have no idea what I'll be doing over the next several decades, but if there is any chance of it touching the public sphere, I feel somewhat compelled to think about the long term impacts of all my online activity (and even some offline activity). I know much of the data will be lost over time, but a lot of it won't. I try not to worry too much, but it's undeniably had an affect on my behavior.
droopybuns 10y ago
Honestly, I think the social norm argument is probably the bigger story. I've been off of facebook for over 2 years. I used to log in occasionally to see if things changed. Now I log in to look in morbid curiosity. The lens of facebook makes me feel that their users are a meat-based botnet propagating other people's content. I'm shocked that so many of my friends have devolved to this point. It is deeply affecting my parenting strategy.
- abootstrapper 10y ago
  How is it affecting your parenting?
  - droopybuns 10y ago
    "Winners Don't Use Social Media."
- wutbrodo 10y ago
  The makeup of my friend group is such that bilateral event planning is damn near impossible, so I need to log in to Facebook pretty often. So I started using a chrome extension called News Feed Eradicator, which does what you'd expect. I have occasion to log into Facebook on my phone occasionally, in which case I am exposed to the news feed, and I totally agree with you... It somehow seems really bizarre when you're not used to it. It's hard to articulate exactly what seems so off about it, but I can't help but wonder what people could be doing with that time that they'd enjoy much more (I don't personally know a single person who would say they enjoy their time on Facebook, rather than having it be the equivalent of a microwave burrito: you consume it because you don't have the mental activation energy to do that's less immediately at hand.)
lisper 10y ago
> it's no longer being enforced by people we know and interact with but instead by people who we may barely know at all And whose core motive is to make money.
- scotch_drinker 10y ago
  This is an often missed but critical difference in social norms enforced at the community level versus online social networks. It's no longer the community that is trying to protect itself through policing individuals. It's a profit motive of the owners of the networks and they clearly have other goals by definition.

FullMtlAlcoholc 10y ago

> society can't just have people expressing their so called real self and still function in the way it does today. That is a subtly insightful comment. As I am doing some self-learning on human history, I. wantes to expound on this point a bit. It is true that one of the primary objectives of societies, communities, etc., is to restrain the individual ostensibly for the greater good. In the modern era, the greater good has become conflated with those who hold power. However, before we broke out of the Malthusian trap, self-actualizing and expressing one's real self could spell doom for a community. In general, risk-averse behavior has been common among all groups that operated along the margins of survival. The sheer challenge of survival in premodern societies always constrained the behavior of the poor. Taboos and social constraints limited experimentation innovation, and self-expression. For example, the role of marriage and infidelity is the reverse of what it is today. Marriage was a contract, not an expression of love. Often, the only way to express true love was through an affair. Also, it explains the taboo on homosexuality. Since infant mortality rates were higher, couples tended to have more children than we do today. If the union didn't produce children, who would farm the next generation? This was a rational reflection of the fact that experimentation increases the variability of results. Greater variability means not only potentially greater gains but more ominously for those at the very margin of survival potentially ruinous losses. A great part of the cultural energy of poor farming societies has always been devoted to suppressing experimentation and self-expression. This repression, in effect, was their substitute for insurance policies. Personal ability and personal choice individual "pursuit of happiness," in the modern sense were suppressed by Taboos and social restrictions that have always been most emphatic among the poor. Such restrictions were usually superseded only in societies with high productivity. This makes me really thankful I was born in the modern era or I'd be doing what my father did, as he would be doing what his father did and so on.

mtnygard 10y ago

To extend your point just a bit farther: participants in social media have to also be aware of _potential_ enforcement in the possibly distant future. E.g., college kids worrying about employers, potential politicians managing their image for a future decade's voters, or threatened/marginalized populations worried about future political environments. Anyone thinking in that mode has to aggressively manage their presentation to avoid offending someone they _might_ know or who _might_ have power over them.

drinkjuice 10y ago
> threatened/marginalized populations worried about future political environments Including not only oneself, but all future current and future friends, lovers and offspring. But the real kicker is that ultimately, it's not just about managing your presentation, but about the (impossibility of) managing the interpretations of others, according to rules, quotas and/or programs they defined and which they will always be somewhat in the dark about. So if in doubt, if you haven't seen others say it and be rewarded for it, maybe don't say it. How's that for a great outlook.
dwaltrip 10y ago
It's exhausting and quite frustrating... As a 27 year old, I have no idea what I'll be doing over the next several decades, but if there is any chance of it touching the public sphere, I feel somewhat compelled to think about the long term impacts of all my online activity (and even some offline activity). I know much of the data will be lost over time, but a lot of it won't. I try not to worry too much, but it's undeniably had an affect on my behavior.

droopybuns 10y ago

Honestly, I think the social norm argument is probably the bigger story. I've been off of facebook for over 2 years. I used to log in occasionally to see if things changed. Now I log in to look in morbid curiosity. The lens of facebook makes me feel that their users are a meat-based botnet propagating other people's content. I'm shocked that so many of my friends have devolved to this point. It is deeply affecting my parenting strategy.

abootstrapper 10y ago
How is it affecting your parenting?
- droopybuns 10y ago
  "Winners Don't Use Social Media."
wutbrodo 10y ago
The makeup of my friend group is such that bilateral event planning is damn near impossible, so I need to log in to Facebook pretty often. So I started using a chrome extension called News Feed Eradicator, which does what you'd expect. I have occasion to log into Facebook on my phone occasionally, in which case I am exposed to the news feed, and I totally agree with you... It somehow seems really bizarre when you're not used to it. It's hard to articulate exactly what seems so off about it, but I can't help but wonder what people could be doing with that time that they'd enjoy much more (I don't personally know a single person who would say they enjoy their time on Facebook, rather than having it be the equivalent of a microwave burrito: you consume it because you don't have the mental activation energy to do that's less immediately at hand.)

lisper 10y ago

> it's no longer being enforced by people we know and interact with but instead by people who we may barely know at all And whose core motive is to make money.

scotch_drinker 10y ago
This is an often missed but critical difference in social norms enforced at the community level versus online social networks. It's no longer the community that is trying to protect itself through policing individuals. It's a profit motive of the owners of the networks and they clearly have other goals by definition.