I thought I'd say hello and kick off my presence on SMT with my a post on my my favorite theme around social media: developing good mental models of the sociology of the technology. It is surprising how little attention this gets, despite the many bits we expend on commentary on technology.
Consider the famous 50-foot rule of sociology, which dates to the 70s, to Tom Allen of MIT. A few months ago, I took a shot at deconstructing the rule in the context of modern social technology in a post on my blog, ribbonfarm.com, titled The Fifty-Foot Rule Reconsidered. Bless the wisdom of the crowds (or in this case, some rather stand-out-of-the-crowd wisdom). Readers of my blog immediately pointed me to the fascinating article, Inside the Monkeysphere. That made me rethink my argument and propose an improved model in my follow-up article, The Twitter Zone and Virtual Geography. What surprised me while writing these pieces and engaging in the discussions that followed was that even such simple conceptual analysis issues hadn't been properly examined. We've been far too busy worrying about the latest doodads on Facebook.
Readers of SMT might enjoy the not-entirely-whimsical visualization device I invented for the latter post.
Since then, I have been thinking of this subject more and more, and it seems to me that we social media watchers spend far too much time salivating over new technical ideas, and too little wondering about the sociology. Yes, academics have given the subject some thought, and Facebook studies seems to be the new path to tenure, yet, no Max Weber or Emile Durkheim has emerged to provide us with a definitive treatment. While the work of researchers like Duncan Watts (he of "Six Degrees" fame) is a start, frankly, the ideas haven't evolved much beyond Granovetter and Milgram.
Have you found any truly interesting and illuminating conceptual analyses and ideas that put the emphasis on the 'social' of 'social computing'? If so, do share!
Consider the famous 50-foot rule of sociology, which dates to the 70s, to Tom Allen of MIT. A few months ago, I took a shot at deconstructing the rule in the context of modern social technology in a post on my blog, ribbonfarm.com, titled The Fifty-Foot Rule Reconsidered. Bless the wisdom of the crowds (or in this case, some rather stand-out-of-the-crowd wisdom). Readers of my blog immediately pointed me to the fascinating article, Inside the Monkeysphere. That made me rethink my argument and propose an improved model in my follow-up article, The Twitter Zone and Virtual Geography. What surprised me while writing these pieces and engaging in the discussions that followed was that even such simple conceptual analysis issues hadn't been properly examined. We've been far too busy worrying about the latest doodads on Facebook.
Readers of SMT might enjoy the not-entirely-whimsical visualization device I invented for the latter post.
Since then, I have been thinking of this subject more and more, and it seems to me that we social media watchers spend far too much time salivating over new technical ideas, and too little wondering about the sociology. Yes, academics have given the subject some thought, and Facebook studies seems to be the new path to tenure, yet, no Max Weber or Emile Durkheim has emerged to provide us with a definitive treatment. While the work of researchers like Duncan Watts (he of "Six Degrees" fame) is a start, frankly, the ideas haven't evolved much beyond Granovetter and Milgram.
Have you found any truly interesting and illuminating conceptual analyses and ideas that put the emphasis on the 'social' of 'social computing'? If so, do share!