Monthly Archives: August 2010

Sociologist Oldenburg responds to Facebook Places

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In a recent interview, Facebook vice president of product Chris Cox, suggested that Ray Oldenburg’s work on the “third place” was behind the development of Facebook Places.

Oldenburg has responded in an email exchange with ZDNet:

“While I can appreciate that Facebook certainly helps people keep in touch with one another, I’m left to wonder why the pitch began with the 3P idea.  I got a whiff of snake oil there for the matter of how Facebook ties to 3Ps is not made clear.”

Speaking more broadly about the relationship between Facebook as a service and his ideas of place:

“I had nothing to do with Facebook and I resent the idea that it’s a “place.”  Real places unite people, electronic ones, because they are based on user choice, tend to be divisive; that is, to connect people who think alike and exclude others.  The term “virtual third place(s)” is common and most inappropriate.”Virtual” means the same in essence and effect and that is far from the truth.”

So Oldenburg is skeptical. The main issue seems to be whether this online realm is a real “place.” Public places are typically conceived as locations that all sorts of people can use. They don’t necessarily interact with each other but all can partake of it and are generally aware that there are different people around. In contrast, Facebook Places is limited to those with Facebook. Until we have a world where everyone has Facebook and has the ability to use it with a mobile device, Facebook Places is limited. There is a substantial sociological literature on the privatization of public spaces, such as parks.

Additionally, Oldenburg suggests that online communities tend to be broken down along lines of interest rather than proximity. People who like certain things tend to gather together and experience little mixing with others. These online places then become exclusive clubs. This is different than true public spaces where at least people are made aware that there are others in the world.

As ZDNet notes, Facebook is also interested in making money with these Places.

Reviving an old debate: who is the best Beatle?

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Rolling Stone has released a special issue featuring the 100 Greatest Beatles Songs. Paul Grein of Yahoo! Music argues the list revives the question of who was the greatest Beatle:

Of the 100 songs, which were ranked by the editors of Rolling Stone, 40 were written by Lennon, 35 by McCartney, 17 by the two men working together and eight by George Harrison, who came into his own as a songwriter on the Beatles’ final albums.

So it’s fairly close, but Lennon was the key Beatle? Not so fast. In the high-rent district, McCartney leads. McCartney has three songs in the top 10 (“Yesterday” at #4, “Hey Jude” at #7 and “Let It Be” at #8), to just two for Lennon (“Strawberry Fields Forever” at #3 and “Come Together” at #9). Three songs in the top 10 are Lennon/McCartney collaborations: “A Day In The Life” at #1, “I Want To Hold Your Hand” at #2 and “In My Life” at #5. Harrison wrote the two remaining songs in the top 10 (“Something” at #6 and “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” at #10).

Grein concludes that Lennon was favored in the list:

Why do critics tend to favor Lennon? There are two main reasons. Lennon was edgier and more envelope-pushing, and rock critics tend to favor those qualities over McCartney’s more tradition-bound, pop-minded virtues. Also, Lennon died at 40, shot to death outside of his apartment.

I’ll add my own two cents: Lennon said the kinds of things, particularly politically and culturally, that people who write and read Rolling Stone like. But I’m not convinced he was so “edgy” – after reading several books about his life, particularly post-Beatles, he sounds like a man who was often lost. While he often sounded like a man who knew what he thought, his personal actions indicated something else.

As for who is the best Beatle: I can’t say I really have a favorite. What continually impresses me is the whole they made out of four different parts. The solo work of all four members is an indication that something special happened between the members to create such enduring music.

Identifying four types of Evangelical leaders

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A new sociological study examines how Evangelical business leaders mix faith and business:

A new study based on interviews with hundreds of American leaders who are evangelical Christians (including CEOs, presidents, and chairs of large businesses and their equivalents in government and politics, nonprofits, arts, entertainment, the media, and sports) finds enormous variety in how leaders engage their personal faith in workplace decision-making.

“While everyone in the workplace has to make decisions—whether they’re the janitor or the manager—the most consequential decisions are made at the top, and we wanted to look at how they affect their businesses,” says D. Michael Lindsay, a sociologist at Rice University.

Lindsay found that most evangelical leaders fit into one of four decision-making categories: pragmatic, heroic, circumspect, and brazen.

Read about the four types in the rest of the article. The study suggests that Evangelicals live out their faith in a variety of ways. What predicts which type people fall into? And then how does acting as this type as a business leader affect their organization?

Of course, one could always ask if there is a more correct type…

How birth rates can be influenced by economics

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Birth rates have been relatively stable over the last 20 years in the United States – while there is some variation, it is nothing like comparing the birth rate today to the birth rate in early 1900s. Additionally, the United States has a relatively high birth rate compared to many industrialized nations.

However, new data suggests the birth rate may have been affected by the economic crisis:

The birth rate, which takes into account changes in the population, fell to 13.5 births for every 1,000 people last year. That’s down from 14.3 in 2007 and way down from 30 in 1909, when it was common for people to have big families…

The situation is a striking turnabout from 2007, when more babies were born in the United States than any other year in the nation’s history. The recession began that fall, dragging stocks, jobs and births down…

Another possible factor in the drop: a decline in immigration to the United States.

On one hand, deciding to have a child is a very personal decision – the United States has no official guidelines about this and people are free to do what they wish. On the other hand, there are a whole host of social factors that influence this decision including economics, cultural background, and social pressure to conform to existing and changing norms.

A few days ago, the Chicago Tribune highlighted the issue in Illinois.

The changing demographics of American kindergarten students

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Many researchers have noted the existing demographic transition in America away from a large majority of whites to a more diverse population. USA Today has some statistics about what this looks like at the level of kindergarten classes:

•About 25% of 5-year-olds are Hispanic, a big jump from 19% in 2000. Hispanics of that age outnumber blacks almost 2 to 1.

•The percentage of white 5-year-olds fell from 59% in 2000 to about 53% today and the share of blacks from 15% to 13%.

“This is not just a big-city phenomenon,” Johnson says. “The percentage of minority children is growing faster in the suburbs and in rural areas.”

Measuring this at the level of kindergarten classes might be a decent proxy for measuring the next generation.

I wonder how this will impact the image of suburbs which have traditionally been thought of as lily-white places. The suburbs of the 2050s will look quite different in population than the suburbs of the 1950s, post-World War II era.

Companies come, companies go: Blockbuster edition

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Blockbuster has been on the economic edge for a while now and is apparently close to filing for bankruptcy.

Perhaps Blockbuster is a microcosm of the economic situation in America over the last 25 years: it quickly grew in size to fill a market niche, expanded to what too turned out to be too many locations, and then eventually has reached a point where it needs to seriously regroup due to technological change and some other reasons. I remember seeing them sprout in the Chicago area. Within a few years, we went from no nearby stores to numerous locations within 5 miles (and even more of its type if we were to count businesses like Hollywood Video). They were everywhere, including suburban downtown locations and strip malls.

I would be interested in reading a sociological study about how this company expanded but then had trouble adapting to the changing market for movies and video games. How did they successfully find customers early on and then lose those customers later on? How did Blockbuster’s growth accompany general suburban growth, housing patterns, and growth of other important retailers?

So much technology, so little writing

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Some students in China and Japan are finding that they are losing the ability to write. It sounds like they can see the words and know how to spell but they are losing the ability to remember the characters:

Yet aged just 21 and now a university student in Hong Kong, Li already finds that when she picks up a pen to write, the characters for words as simple as “embarrassed” have slipped from her mind.

“I can remember the shape, but I can?t remember the strokes that you need to write it,” she says. “It’s a bit of a problem.”

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Surveys indicate the phenomenon, dubbed “character amnesia”, is widespread across China, causing young Chinese to fear for the future of their ancient writing system.

Young Japanese people also report the problem, which is caused by the constant use of computers and mobile phones with alphabet-based input systems.

I don’t know how much of a problem this might be. If one is engaged in one media realm (texting, the Internet, etc.), it makes some sense that writing skills would decline and perhaps disappear. While I still remember how to write letters, I have found my writing endurance has declined. Particularly for people younger than me, I imagine writing might seem pretty archaic compared to the quickness of digital technology.

There is a suggestion later in the article that this might affect reading skills. There are also suggestions that the Chinese language is changing with the advent with new technology. Ultimately, languages and communication options do change over time. This is a great example of how changing technology can affect and alter language.

WEIRD (Western, education, industrialized, rich, democratic) people may indeed be weird

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A new article in Brain and Behavioral Sciences makes a thought-provoking cross-cultural conclusion about WEIRD people:

The article, titled “The weirdest people in the world?”, appears in the current issue of the journal Brain and Behavioral Sciences. Dr. Henrich and co-authors Steven Heine and Ara Norenzayan argue that life-long members of societies that are Western, educated, industrialized, rich, democratic — people who are WEIRD — see the world in ways that are alien from the rest of the human family. The UBC trio have come to the controversial conclusion that, say, the Machiguenga are not psychological outliers among humanity. We are…

WEIRD people, the UBC researchers argue, have unusual ideas of fairness, are more individualistic and less conformist than other people. In many of these respects, Americans are the most “extreme” Westerners, especially young ones. And educated Americans are even more extremely WEIRD than uneducated ones…

One of the consequences of this argument that is pointed out by the authors is that WEIRD people are then a bad population for studies and experiments because the results may not be generalizable.

I wonder how average Westerners and Americans in particular would react after reading this argument. Perhaps it might fit in with some of the ideas regarding “American exceptionalism” – though whether this is good or bad could be debated.
Regardless, if other researchers agree with these conclusions, it suggests that social science studies about humanity need to be expanded across the globe. The era of the undergraduate research subject might then be over.

Unselfish people not liked by fellow group members

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When working in small groups, each person plays certain roles. If someone is unselfish, recent research suggests this does not lead to popularity among other group members:

Unselfish workers who are the first to offer to help with projects are among those that co-workers like the least, according to four separate social psychology studies.

In the most recent study, entitled “The Desire to Expel Unselfish Members from the Group,” psychologists found that unselfish colleagues come to be resented because they “raise the bar” for what’s expected of everyone. As a result, workers feel the new standard will make everyone else look bad.

“It doesn’t matter that the overall welfare of the group or the task at hand is better served by someone’s unselfish behavior. What is objectively good, you see as subjectively bad,” said study co-author Craig Parks of Washington State University. The paper was published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

This is an interesting finding. The article goes on to say that some of the other participants thought the unselfish person had ulterior motives. The unselfishness was unsettling for other participants who sounded like they expected each person to play for themselves rather than think about the greater good.
I wonder if these findings would be any different if the participants were not all undergraduate students. And what would it take for groups to accept the unselfish behavior – repeated offers to help from the unselfish member, time, failure on the part of other members?

Plainfield: From deadly tornado to suburban growth

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Plainfield, Illinois has experienced much suburban growth in the last twenty years: it had 4,500 people in 1990 and it was estimated in 2007 to have more than 37,000 (with projections of 120,000 people in 2030).

But at the beginning of this growth spurt, a deadly F5 tornado ripped through the community on August 28, 1990:

The tornado touched down outside Oswego about 3:15 p.m., and the 200 mph winds inside it etched a scar 16 miles long, stretching to the southwest side of Joliet.

By 3:45, the sky was clear and the horizon lined with battered, leafless trees and ruined homes. In all, 1,500 buildings were damaged or destroyed, 300 people were injured and 29 were dead, victims of the most powerful tornado ever to strike the Chicago area.

As the community prepares to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the tornado, this article provides some insights into the collective memory of the community. The memory of their darkest moment faded away as new people moved in, 1,000 new residents in the first year after the tornado. Today, Plainfield is something different than it was then.

Sociological studies of the effects of disasters or crises tend to focus on big cities. I recently heard a presentation about a new book comparing the 9/11 crisis in New York City and the Hurricane Katrina crisis in New Orleans. I wonder if the insights of that book would be able to speak to the experience of people in places like Plainfield.