Tag Archives: Facebook

Are there boundaries for behavior on social networking sites?

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A sociologist argues that social networking sites have all sorts of deviant behaviors because of a lack of boundaries:

“Society’s sometimes obsessive use of social networking sites has led to the development of several long term social affects stemming from the idea that these virtual communities often minimize the importance of face-to-face social interaction, while enabling a tendency for users to be inherently comfortable with isolation,” said Coleman.

Coleman goes on to point out that society’s widespread use of social networking sites has also contributed to the creation of virtual worlds and online communities in which there are no boundaries, and often no regard for truth or the regulation of behavior.

“Offensive and threatening language becomes normalized, while photos of and statements by people engaged in dehumanizing acts are not condemned, but instead encouraged, ‘liked’ and commented on.”

I would agree that this negative and deviant behavior happens online but I would be interested in seeing some data. Some data I’ve seen from emerging adults suggests there are plenty of rules and norms governing SNS behavior. These emerging adults were well aware of these issues and most suggested they didn’t violate the boundaries.

One issue here might be what SNS we are talking about. Facebook, for example, is fairly regulated both by the platform and by users even as users can express a wide range of opinions. Other SNS offer more latitude. Other areas of the Internet, such as comment sections or personal blogs or chat rooms, offer all sorts of opinions and actions. Yet, many of these Internet places are not SNS in the technical sense.

Facebook partnering to build a new mixed-use development for its workers

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Here are a few details about Facebook’s plans to help put together a new mixed-use development near its main campus:

The planned complex, designed by architecture firm KTGY Group, is the first major housing development in Menlo Park in 20 years, and is expected to open in 2016. According to Deanna Chow, a senior planner in Menlo Park’s planning department, the city is largely occupied by single-family homes. This 394-unit residential community will be the first mixed-use development of its scale in the city…

While Facebook’s investment in the complex only extends to subsidizing 15 low-income units, Anton Menlo could very well become a “Facebook Town.” Besides its proximity to Facebook’s campus, the designers also kept the company’s employees very much in mind. A series of focus groups and electronic surveys gauging employees’ needs and desires translated into amenities like a “grab & go” convenience store, sports pub, doggy daycare, bicycle repair shop, and an “iCafe” filled with community WiFi zones, printers, and office supplies. Once construction begins, St. Anton will market the apartments to Facebook employees first before opening up to the general public. The developer is also working to establish a leasing office on Facebook’s campus.

Beyond concerns about Facebook employees becoming slaves to work or the beginnings of a community made up entirely of “brogrammers,” the project is actually a much-needed step in addressing Menlo Park’s housing strain. According to a housing fact sheet from the city, Menlo Park has a “jobs/housing inbalance,” with 41,320 workers but only 13,129 housing units…

On the plus side, housing employees close to work can help reduce traffic and gridlock. In fact, the Anton Menlo project aims to make several specific transit improvements. The Facebook corporate shuttle will be adding a stop at Anton Menlo. On a mission to get people home as soon as possible, the developer is working with the city to put in a bike path that runs directly from the Facebook campus to the new complex. Also in the works are separated sidewalks, crosswalks that light up to caution cars, and an underground tunnel linking Facebook’s campus to the apartments.

So, Facebook might help alleviate some housing pressure in a community that is difficult to live in but there will be questions about this being a “company town.” There are a lot of American companies that could afford similar actions. If they provide housing for their employees without being too controlling, two good things might emerge: (1) the workers might be more productive and (2) the community could be helped. Either way, it will be interesting to watch the outcome of Facebook’s real estate development activities.

While companies might get flack about providing housing, I wonder if developers and those involved in real estate are regarded more highly for their efforts to develop housing. For example, this 2009 Harris Poll regarding occupational prestige has real estate agent/broker at the bottom of 23 occupations. Developers sometimes provide big houses people want but they can also raise the ire of neighbors whose NIMBY hackles are raised.

Are Google and other tech companies actually advertising companies?

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A sociologist suggests tech companies are not really about technology but rather are about advertising:

Why do we call businesses like Google, Facebook and Twitter “tech” companies when most of what they do—and the source of most of their revenue—is advertising, sociologist Darwin Bondgraham asks in The Washington Spectator.

“With Google, and many other firms among the new breed of ‘tech’ companies, the computer has become more than a mere brochure,” writes Bondgraham. “The computer is an incredibly sophisticated and persuasive salesman. Brochures are inert documents a shopper flips through. The computer as salesman is an agent, watching us closely, collecting data about our wants, and subtly implanting desires in our consumer minds.”

“Google is the best case in point,” the sociologist continues. “Google has never been a ‘tech’ company, whatever tech is supposed to mean anyway. Google is an advertising company, and it makes most of its revenues from selling advertisements. Many of the fastest growing so-called tech companies are just like Google. The core of what they do, and how they make money, isn’t about the math and science of building things. Rather, these tech companies acquire, process, and sell information for the singular purpose of steering potential consumers toward a purchase.”

Google’s financial filings make this clear. As the company’s executives state in Part 1, Item 1 of their latest annual report to shareholders: “We generate revenue primarily by delivering relevant, cost-effective online advertising.”

Interesting argument. These companies did involve technological advancement – in Google’s case, a new algorithm for searching – but perhaps this technology is most effective for selling targeted advertisements. Instead of having to apply a scattershot approach through mass media outlets, advertisers can now easily find their target demographic. At the same time, there is still a long ways to go to truly make big money off this kind of advertising, especially for Facebook and Twitter. What is the best way to provide a good experience with users while enticing users to see and click on advertisements?

“The Strength of Weak Ties” means Twitter relationships are more helpful than those on Facebook

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Clive Thompson applies sociologist Mark Granovetter’s famous findings regarding weak ties to a comparison of relationships on Twitter and Facebook:

In 1973, sociologist Mark Granovetter gave a name to this powerful process: “The Strength of Weak Ties.” Granovetter had spent time researching the ways in which people found new jobs. After surveying hundreds of job finders, he discovered there were three main strategies: responding to job advertisements; direct application and coldcalling; or harnessing personal contacts…

But the second finding was even more intriguing: When people got these word-of-mouth jobs, they most often came via a weak tie. Almost 28 percent of the people heard of their job from someone they saw once a year or less. Another 55.6 percent heard of their job from someone they saw “more than once a year but less than twice a week.” Only a minority were told of the job by a “strong tie,” someone whom they saw at least twice a week. To put it another way, you’re far less likely to hear about a great job opening from a close friend. You’re much more likely to learn about it from a distant colleague…

For example, Facebook’s news feed analyzes which contacts you most pay attention to and highlights their updates in your “top stories” feed, so you’re liable to hear more and more often from the same small set of people. (Worse, as I’ve discovered, it seems to drop from view the people whom you almost never check in on — which means your weakest ties gradually vanish from sight.) As Pariser suggests, we can fight homophily with self-awareness—noticing our own built-in biases, cultivating contacts that broaden our world, and using tools that are less abstruse and covert than Facebook’s hidden algorithms.

If you escape homophily, there’s another danger to ambient awareness: It can become simply too interesting and engaging. A feed full of people broadcasting clever thoughts and intriguing things to read is, like those seventeenth-century coffee shops, a scene so alluring it’s impossible to tear yourself away. Like many others, I’ve blown hours doing nothing of value (to my bank account, anyway) while careening from one serendipitous encounter to another.

Put differently, Facebook can tend to reinforce existing relationships while making it more difficult to see what is happening with your weaker acquaintances. Other platforms, like Twitter, update their feeds differently and may allow users to see what is happening with their weak ties.

Of course, this all assumes that such online relationships are often instrumental, meant to help users acquire resources of one kind or another through a network.

Born into digital lives: average newborn online within an hour of birth

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The newborns of today arrive online very quickly:

The poll found that parents were the most likely to upload pictures of the newborns (62 per cent), followed by other family members (22 per cent) and friends (16 per cent).

The most popular platform for displaying these first baby images was Facebook, followed by Instagram and Flickr…

Marc Phelps of baby photo agency http://www.posterista.co.uk, which commissioned the survey, said: “The fact that a picture of the average newborn is now online within an hour just goes to highlight the enormous impact social media has had on our lives in the past five years, and how prevalent these pages are in helping to keep loved ones informed on the special occasions in our lives, such as the birth of a new child.

Some more on the survey:

The poll by print site http://www.posterista.co.uk, which surveyed 2,367 parents of children aged five and under, aimed to discover the impact social media have had on the way new parents share information and images of their offspring…

The top five reasons cited for sharing these images online included keeping distant family and friends updated (56%), expressing love for their children (49%), describing it as an ideal location to store memories (34%), saying it is a great way to record children’s early years (28%), and to brag to and “better” other parents’ photos (22%).

It sounds like complete digital immersion. The most common reason given for this practice mirror the main reasons users give for participating in SNS like Facebook: to remain connected with others. But, the next four reasons differ. The second and fifth reasons suggest posting photos about newborns is about social interactions, first with the new baby (positive, though the baby doesn’t know it – plus, this could be part of a public performance of how love is shown in the 2010s) but then also in competition with others (negative). The third and fourth reasons are more about new digital tools; instead of developing film or printing pictures, SNS can be online repositories of life (offloading our memories online).

Thinking more broadly, what are the ethics of posting pictures of people online who haven’t given their permission or don’t know they are online? This could apply to children but this could also apply to friends or even strangers who end up in your photos. Some have suggested companies like Facebook have information on people who don’t have profiles through the information provided by others. Plus, if you don’t go online, others might think you are suspicious. So, perhaps the best way to protect your content online is not to withdraw and try to hide but rather to rigorously monitor all possible options…

Facebook to build $1.5 billion data center in…Iowa

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In looking at the geographic dispersion of major data or server centers, it looks like Iowa is pretty popular:

Facebook is building a 1.4-million-square-foot data center on the outskirts of Des Moines, Iowa, according to a local report.

With a price tag estimated at $1.5 billion, the massive facility would join the data centers Facebook has already built in Prineville, Oregon and Forest City, North Carolina, as well as a third under construction in Luleå, Sweden…

Like Oregon and North Carolina, Iowa has become a hotbed for internet data centers. Google runs a facility in Council Bluffs, Iowa, while Microsoft operates a data center in West Des Moines. Facebook’s facility is set for Altoona, a small town north-east of Des Moines.

Companies such as Facebook are attracted to such places in part because local governments provide tax breaks for these enormous computing facilities. According to local reports, Facebook has asked for additional tax credits for using wind power to help the new facility.

It appears tax breaks win again. But, the Des Moines Register also noted some other enticing features of the area:

Iowa has been competing fiercely with Nebraska for the data center, code named Catapult…

City officials and leaders of the companies say Altoona is prime real estate for data farms because it meets all of their primary needs:

• Access to an extensive interstate fiber optic cable system, already installed within the city and running along Interstate Highway 80.

• Proximity to adequate power and water utilities. (A large MidAmerican substation is less than half a mile from the 200-acre site.)

• Open and affordable land with low natural disaster risks. (Coastal cities often face the threat of hurricanes and earthquakes.)

• Transportation access near the crossroads of interstate highways 80 and 35 and U.S. Highway 65.

What would happen if Iowa were to pull these tax breaks? What about having an educated workforce – it looks like Des Moines has a decent share of the “creative class” as measured by Richard Florida.

It would be interesting to put this is a larger Midwestern context. Would these tech companies consider the Chicago area, with or without the tax breaks? How about Ann Arbor or Madison? Are other places even competing for data centers – and if not, why not?

The quick rise and fall of “Pray for Boston” on social media

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One early response to the Boston bombings on social media, “Pray for Boston,” quickly increased and then quickly faded. Here is one reaction and possible explanation:

It was jarring. There was the weirdness of seeing so many references to the divine in spaces normally reserved for vacation photos and article links and quips about the news. It was tempting to think that all the social-media-fueled “prayers for Boston” somehow degraded the idea of prayer. As one Facebook commenter wrote on the Pray for Boston page: “Do you want me to DEFINE prayer? A solemn request for help or expression of thanks addressed to God or an object of worship. Prayer is solemn. Not a ‘like’ on facebook.”

It was also strange to see so many non-religious friends talking about prayer. The majority of my Facebook friends who wrote about praying aren’t especially observant. Maybe they go to church or synagogue on holidays, but not regularly—and they certainly don’t post about prayer under normal circumstances…

But I’m not sure that’s really what’s going on here. I don’t think the outpouring of post-Boston social-media prayer was fueled by a bunch of people who, in the face of tragedy, are suddenly eager to seek God. As Elizabeth Drescher writes in a well-done piece at Religion Dispatches, it didn’t take long for the “pray for Boston” meme to die; it was soon replaced by other, more practical sentiments. I noticed that, too. Here it is in graph form—check out how quickly the phrase “pray for Boston” surged on Twitter on Monday, and then how quickly it fell…

Drescher believes #PrayforBoston rose and fell so quickly because the prayers were never really about religion in the first place. They were more reflections of temporary anxiety and sadness than a lasting call to pursue belief:

I’ll throw out two related ideas:

1. Perhaps expressing prayer for victims of tragedy is an updated feature of civil religion in the United States. After tragic events, particularly deaths, it is common for politicians, media figures, and others to say something like “our thoughts and prayers are with the victims.” This is a shorthand for saying we care about the victims and are hoping for the best for them. Invoking prayer is a generic idea (such phrases are not explicitly about praying to “the Christian God” or Jesus) and works pretty well in a society where 80-90% still believe in God or a higher power. In other words, it is like saying “God bless America” at the end of major political speeches – it is a reference to religion but runs little risk of offending people and taps into some transcendent ideas about ourselves and the United States.

2. It is relatively rare to see sustained expressions of religious faith on social media. While most Americans still have some sort of religious or spiritual belief, social media tends to frown on such expressions. Perhaps this is related to the idea of Moral Therapeutic Deism as found and defined by sociologist Christian Smith – what may work religiously for you is fine as long as you don’t impose your values on me and “force” me to see this on my Facebook or Twitter feed may simply be too much. At the same time, just the fact that this social media meme even started at all indicates some kind of religious background of the users.

Studies suggest texting in class is related to lower grades, GPA

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Several studies in recent years have examined the link between students texting and using Facebook in in class and their grades. The Chicago Tribune summarizes the studies:

In the past five years researchers have published the results of five surveys and experiments that link texting and Facebooking with lower academic performance. In 2011, researchers at California State University reported that students who received or sent a high number of text messages during a video recorded lecture scored worse on a quiz than those who received or sent few or no text messages.

In a 2012 study, a researcher at Lock Haven University in Pennsylvania surveyed 1,800 students about how often they Facebook, instant message, email, text, search online and talk on the phone in class. Among the results: 69 percent of students reported they had texted in class, and students who texted or used Facebook more frequently in class had lower overall semester GPAs. The author of that study, Reynol Junco, also co-wrote a study that linked texting and Facebooking during study time with lower GPAs…

“That I can be definitive about: That’s not working. If you’re going to search (online) during class, I don’t have any data telling you to stop. If you’re going to email during class, I don’t have any data to tell you to stop. But do not text or Facebook during class. Do not text or Facebook while you’re studying for your classes, because that’s another area where this is definitely a negative.”…

Junco’s evidence against texting and Facebooking is correlational, meaning that his studies show that students who Facebook or text more in class or while studying do worse academically, but not that the texting or Facebooking itself is causing the problem. It’s possible that, say, an easily distractible student is texting a lot and doing poorly in class, with the underlying cause of poor performance being the distractibility, not the texting. But Junco points to two other college studies in which researchers, not students, largely determined which students would do the most media multitasking in class.

In both the studies — the California State study and one published in 2012 in the journal Computers and Education — a form of media multitasking (texting or Facebooking) was linked to lower student performance.

It would be interesting to pair data like this with student’s perceptions of whether they are doing better or worse in a class because they are texting, browsing, or not. It would be one thing if students knew that texting was distracting and did it anyway and yet another thing if they were so used to texting that they were unaware of its possible effects.

Let’s say future studies more clearly establish a causal link. Would colleges then move to banning cell phone use or Facebooking in class? Or is this one of those areas that would generate a lot of negative feedback from students who would want the freedom to do more of what they want in class?

How the Facebook equation 6÷2(1+2)= reveals the social construction of the order of operations

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An equation on Facebook that has generated a lot of debate actually illustrates where the mathematical order of operations comes from:

Some of you are already insisting in your head that 6 ÷ 2(1+2) has only one right answer, but hear me out. The problem isn’t the mathematical operations. It’s knowing what operations the author of the problem wants you to do, and in what order. Simple, right? We use an “order of operations” rule we memorized in childhood: “Please excuse my dear Aunt Sally,” or PEMDAS, which stands for Parentheses Exponents Multiplication Division Addition Subtraction.* This handy acronym should settle any debate—except it doesn’t, because it’s not a rule at all. It’s a convention, a customary way of doing things we’ve developed only recently, and like other customs, it has evolved over time. (And even math teachers argue over order of operations.)

“In earlier times, the conventions didn’t seem as rigid and people were supposed to just figure it out if they were mathematically competent,” says Judy Grabiner, a historian of mathematics at Pitzer College in Claremont, Calif. Mathematicians generally began their written work with a list of the conventions they were using, but the rise of mass math education and the textbook industry, as well as the subsequent development of computer programming languages, required something more codified. That codification occurred somewhere around the turn of the last century. The first reference to PEMDAS is hard to pin down. Even a short list of what different early algebra texts taught reveals how inconsistently the order of operations was applied…

The bottom line is that “order of operations” conventions are not universal truths in the same way that the sum of 2 and 2 is always 4. Conventions evolve throughout history in response to cultural and technological shifts. Meanwhile, those ranting online about gaps in U.S. math education and about the “right” answer to these intentionally ambiguous math problems might be, ironically, missing a bigger point.

“To my mind,” says Grabiner, “the major deficit in U.S. math education is that people think math is about calculation and formulas and getting the one right answer, rather than being about exciting ideas that cut across all sorts of intellectual categories, clear and logical thinking, the power of abstraction and a language that lets you solve problems you’ve never seen before.” Even if that language, like any other, can be a bit ambiguous sometimes.

Another way to restate this conclusion from Grabiner is that math is more about problem-solving than calculations.

This reminds me of well-known areas of sociology that deal with the norms of everyday interactions. In order to interpret the actions of others, we need to know about agreed-upon assumptions. When those assumptions are blurry or are not followed, people get nervous. Hence, as this article suggests, many people get anxious when the rules/norms of math are seemingly violated. If these sorts of basic equations can’t be easily figured out, what hope is there to understand the rest of math? But, norms are not always cut and dry and that can be okay…as long as the people participating are aware of this.