6 ms·

There's a contextual problem that's been around for 50 years that FB is just making worse. Human communications depend largely on context. We weren't made to b

There's a contextual problem that's been around for 50 years that FB is just making worse. Human communications depend largely on context. We weren't made to blurt out every one of our feelings and observations to the community at large. Instead, we share this piece of information with this person, ask this other person for advice, listen in on these other folks when they talk about X, etc. The is the natural way of being human -- to use a phrase from the movie, it's the social experience. Every technical solution I've seen so far fails to include this contextual nature of communication. It's too much of a pain for folks to pick certain people for certain kinds of talk, and it's all so much a pain in the ass (compared with the old way of physically moving from one group to another) Oddly enough, this was first noticed with TV back in the 1950s. Up until then, conversations were small and cliquish -- the natural order. TV brought in the idea of "universal" communicating in a way that radio, plays, or newspapers didn't. Suddenly everybody in the family was in the room when Lucy got pregnant, or when Opie killed the bird with the slingshot. Of course, nobody bothered much complaining back then, because, after all, back in the 1950s what kind of radical information was going to be on TV? And nobody complained (much) when TV got into a lot more controversial issues in the last couple of decades. But now it's not TV -- it's us. It's our lives, our pregnancies, our sorrows, etc. I think people need the contextual nature of communication -- it makes society function. But I don't see any technology solution on the horizon that easily and naturally facilitates this. And yes, if it happens it might just be the next FB killer. But that's a big "if". Lots of folks have went down the road of trying to add context, including FB itself, and so far nobody has been successful.

wolfrom 16y ago
I think context is intertwined with occasional mindset. Sometimes I'm in "work mode", and I want to consume data related to that, while other times I'm in more interested in family, or friends, or (rarely) political chatter. I believe that a service that can create context based on specific mindsets coupled with basic group management can be achieved.
callmeed 16y ago
"But I don't see any technology solution on the horizon that easily and naturally facilitates this." Email
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
chrysb 16y ago
There is something very important that hasn't been addressed in all of this fascinating discussion: Social dynamics are different for every age group. I believe people fall in to four (4) different categories, all relative to when the WWW was first publicly available. 1. Those who were already established adults and working on their careers (our parents) (25-35+) 2. Those who were still developing and learning (probably everyone here) (~5-25) 3. Those who are usually stuck in their ways, less likely to learn (our gradparents) (60+) 4. Those who were born with the internet already extremely developed (kids in high school now, etc) * note: the ages above are at the time the WWW launched, not ages today. -- Each of these groups were subjected to different paradigms of social connection and privacy and therefore have different concerns or interests about privacy. Group 1: Our parents are first were interested in using the internet to research, shop, and other non-social activities. Facebook was ours for a long time until eventually everyone's parents started joining, and now they are reaping the benefits and finding old connections with old friends, but they don't face the same issues of privacy, because they didn't develop a social life through Facebook like we (Group 2) have. Although, if your parents were like mine, they had initial reservations about putting their CC info online, or being searchable online, or having websites track their behaviors, while we (Group 2) were less concerned about it. Group 2: Our group is the most sensitive to privacy, because we're the only group that knew what it was like before and after Facebook. We were also at an extremely social point of our lives when Facebook came out, and we still are now, even more so because of the addition of Facebook to our lives. We are mixing friends with coworkers with family and acquaintances. Our social lives grew side by side with Facebook. For us, Facebook is engrained in our lives and is part of the fabric of our lives. This wasn't the case for our parents. Group 3: Our grandparents generally had no interest in learning to use the internet (with some exceptions, of course), let alone be on Facebook. This group is out of the realm of social networking online. Group 4: The youth. They have grown up with social networks present and a part of their lives from the beginning. And just like our parents were apprehensive about things that we (Group 2) didn't care about, this group is less sensitive to the same privacy concerns that we are. The world is more open for them, and they are less likely to care about their privacy settings beyond hiding stuff from their parents. When you are in high school, you only have one group of people you know… kids in your high school. As you get older, you start to have multiple groups of friends from different stages, you high school friends, college friends, soccer team friends, work friends, and that is when privacy became a concern for us (Group 2). The point is, it's going to be very hard to make one blanket solution that addresses every demographic, as privacy is not as much of a problem for anyone but Group 2, us. So, this is probably what Mark Zuckerberg sees, that the world is inevitably heading towards total openness, and that privacy is dead. I tend to agree that privacy is dead, and that people's lives in the future are going to be far more open than they ever were before. Instead of resisting it and trying to create all of these blanket private social networks (which all fail), we should embrace it.

wolfrom 16y ago

I think context is intertwined with occasional mindset. Sometimes I'm in "work mode", and I want to consume data related to that, while other times I'm in more interested in family, or friends, or (rarely) political chatter. I believe that a service that can create context based on specific mindsets coupled with basic group management can be achieved.

callmeed 16y ago

"But I don't see any technology solution on the horizon that easily and naturally facilitates this." Email

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

chrysb 16y ago

There is something very important that hasn't been addressed in all of this fascinating discussion: Social dynamics are different for every age group. I believe people fall in to four (4) different categories, all relative to when the WWW was first publicly available. 1. Those who were already established adults and working on their careers (our parents) (25-35+) 2. Those who were still developing and learning (probably everyone here) (~5-25) 3. Those who are usually stuck in their ways, less likely to learn (our gradparents) (60+) 4. Those who were born with the internet already extremely developed (kids in high school now, etc) * note: the ages above are at the time the WWW launched, not ages today. -- Each of these groups were subjected to different paradigms of social connection and privacy and therefore have different concerns or interests about privacy. Group 1: Our parents are first were interested in using the internet to research, shop, and other non-social activities. Facebook was ours for a long time until eventually everyone's parents started joining, and now they are reaping the benefits and finding old connections with old friends, but they don't face the same issues of privacy, because they didn't develop a social life through Facebook like we (Group 2) have. Although, if your parents were like mine, they had initial reservations about putting their CC info online, or being searchable online, or having websites track their behaviors, while we (Group 2) were less concerned about it. Group 2: Our group is the most sensitive to privacy, because we're the only group that knew what it was like before and after Facebook. We were also at an extremely social point of our lives when Facebook came out, and we still are now, even more so because of the addition of Facebook to our lives. We are mixing friends with coworkers with family and acquaintances. Our social lives grew side by side with Facebook. For us, Facebook is engrained in our lives and is part of the fabric of our lives. This wasn't the case for our parents. Group 3: Our grandparents generally had no interest in learning to use the internet (with some exceptions, of course), let alone be on Facebook. This group is out of the realm of social networking online. Group 4: The youth. They have grown up with social networks present and a part of their lives from the beginning. And just like our parents were apprehensive about things that we (Group 2) didn't care about, this group is less sensitive to the same privacy concerns that we are. The world is more open for them, and they are less likely to care about their privacy settings beyond hiding stuff from their parents. When you are in high school, you only have one group of people you know… kids in your high school. As you get older, you start to have multiple groups of friends from different stages, you high school friends, college friends, soccer team friends, work friends, and that is when privacy became a concern for us (Group 2). The point is, it's going to be very hard to make one blanket solution that addresses every demographic, as privacy is not as much of a problem for anyone but Group 2, us. So, this is probably what Mark Zuckerberg sees, that the world is inevitably heading towards total openness, and that privacy is dead. I tend to agree that privacy is dead, and that people's lives in the future are going to be far more open than they ever were before. Instead of resisting it and trying to create all of these blanket private social networks (which all fail), we should embrace it.