4 ms·

But what does it mean to be "social"? I've been thinking about this alot lately and it's not easy to define. But social media's version of social is making me m

But what does it mean to be "social"? I've been thinking about this alot lately and it's not easy to define. But social media's version of social is making me more and more uncomfortable. I have so many unfinished thoughts around this but here goes.. I can say that a good social experience is usually in a very small group, dynamic, immersive, thrilling, you can feel it in your entire body, you loose your sense of time. On some social media the interactions are relatively slow, shallow, fragmented, in some sense performative because you know potentially alot of people can read what you're posting. It's like a totally different kind of social, which of course can have it's value but it becomes a problem when most of our social interactions are like this. Take the experience of sharing your vacation pictures. On social media it is like you are packaging your memory to present for a broader audience. Imagine, in contrast, how you would invite your friend over and share your (printed) pictures over a coffee. Depending on what your relationship looks like you will present your trip differently. This shared memory will be woven into your relationship in a unique way, giving it yet another layer. It's like the word social has been hijacked. It was never about making a "social media". It was about changing our idea about what social means..

smallnamespace 8y ago
> what does it mean to be "social" It sounds like you're making a distinction between 'public' and 'private', a distinction with a very long history in the West with sharply differing sets of norms. Early social networks were intensely private, even though you were dealing with individual members of the public. As networks grow and try to vacuum up connections, the actual connections weaken and social networking becomes either quasi-public (the circle of friends' friends could be hundreds to thousands of people), or if something goes viral then it's just public. Our norms for public discourse are sharply different from private conversation—you can say lots of things in the privacy of actual friends and family that presumably you wouldn't say in the middle of a town square. But social media today means that every interaction you have targeted just to friends has a low, but non-zero probability of being judged also by all your neighbors and faraway strangers who have less context. Of course that's uncomfortable—you don't know ahead of time which set of rules are going to get applied to you.
- jesperlang 8y ago
  yeah, the public/private thing is a biggie for me I think. But maybe it's also the speed / "dynamic-ness"? I imagine an open panel discussion can be quite an intense, immersive and interesting social experience :)

smallnamespace 8y ago

> what does it mean to be "social" It sounds like you're making a distinction between 'public' and 'private', a distinction with a very long history in the West with sharply differing sets of norms. Early social networks were intensely private, even though you were dealing with individual members of the public. As networks grow and try to vacuum up connections, the actual connections weaken and social networking becomes either quasi-public (the circle of friends' friends could be hundreds to thousands of people), or if something goes viral then it's just public. Our norms for public discourse are sharply different from private conversation—you can say lots of things in the privacy of actual friends and family that presumably you wouldn't say in the middle of a town square. But social media today means that every interaction you have targeted just to friends has a low, but non-zero probability of being judged also by all your neighbors and faraway strangers who have less context. Of course that's uncomfortable—you don't know ahead of time which set of rules are going to get applied to you.

jesperlang 8y ago
yeah, the public/private thing is a biggie for me I think. But maybe it's also the speed / "dynamic-ness"? I imagine an open panel discussion can be quite an intense, immersive and interesting social experience :)