Comments on: loss of context for me on Facebook

By: efax

efax — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 00:54:07 +0000

I’ll continue to be a big fan of bringing new ideas as to how we choose to contextualize our time online. I, too, am in favor of keeping things open and breaking down societal barriers (yet also keeping our online lives sane!) so look fwd to seeing where this conversation leads!

By: Chinarut

Chinarut — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 11:27:57 +0000

Wow – I am really delighted to read this article and find other like-minded folks who think about what it is to presence “context” amongst your network! this has been an ongoing area of research for me ever since being introduced to Rational ClearCase in 1995, a software configuration management system that used contextulized “views” as a means of viewing your software development world from different angles. Life has never really been the same every since my mind wandered off and thought about what life would be like if we were to bring such sophisticated context-sensitive tools to the table! ok – i’ll save most of you the details and just want to let you know it’s nice of all of you to reinvigorate a conversation that’s been in the backburner for quite some time.

so far, facebook is working for me quite well – it has done quite well in the department of *integrating* my networks together – bringing the various hubs of people I know to one table. it has been able to solve the painpoint I had prior which felt much like jumping from one context to another because that’s just the way websites are structured which is no fault of its own.

I am particularly happy facebook has become a more media-rich means of interacting with my network that has started to replace email as my portal (for lack of a better term). 3D worlds like Second Life are great in concept but we still have ways to go before it becomes widely adopted. facebook is a nice stopgap solution and accepted by people of different walks of life which is why it’s gotten high marks in my book.

By: Jessica

Jessica — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 17:19:33 +0000

Hi Danah. You could always make your own SNS with Ning (http://www.ning.com/) for you and your college friends!

By: Michele

Michele — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 18:56:57 +0000

Hi Danah -

The difficulty w/ FB and many other SNS is that the architecture doesn’t reflect reality; that is, that as social creatures we maintain a myraid of social networks, many of them complex, overlapping and nuanced. The problem is complicated by the fact that the term “friend” is a particularly ambigious and clumsy social construct.

The “friend” designation is the key which opens the door to FaceBook-land. But it’s a bit like having one tool – a hammer – to build an entire house. In theory it could be done, but in the end you’d be left with a weak foundation… and probably not as many “friends” as you’d think to help you move in.

By: stewart

stewart — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 03:37:40 +0000

Why not do what Stephen Fry (English writer, actor and genius) has done and create a Proxy Friends of Danah group? Then anyone can join without you having to add them or reject them and everyone can then see what you want them to see through the group?

The price of fame I guess!!!

By: Alberto Pepe

Alberto Pepe — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 20:44:01 +0000

I just cited your idea of “loss of context” in a short post on my blog:

http://treehugging.org

I thought I’d let you know.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 00:00:02 +0000

From the comments here is sounds like segmented SNS are inevitable, but I would be a chagrined to see the end of a common “friend” pool:

It’s healthy when a teen feels he can friend a parent, and trust them to not infringe on his separate social space.

If your boss is on your friends list you may not vent about her so quickly, but maybe it’s better to pause, respect her as a human being, and consider the root of the problem.

And your boss is socially sophisticated if she knows when she is the intended target of a status, and when it would be a kind of insider trading to acknowledge it.

By: Nic Brisbourne

Nic Brisbourne — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 06:36:50 +0000

Hi Danah – the answer to this is a more finely grained notion of friend. In my head I picture overlapping circles of friends – a bit like a ven diagram. Different parts of your profile are visible to different circles, and you can put the same person in more than one.

This is the way we manage our networks in real life – different parties, different dress codes etc.

Great blog by the way – can’t believe I haven’t been here before.

best,
Nic

By: David Burn

David Burn — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 18:21:04 +0000

Within the Context of No Context by George W.S. Trow might be a helpful read or re-read as we wander through these networks.

And thanks for choosing to be my friend on Facebook. I’m not sure what it means, but I think I might like it. I think I might like it because I want to connect with smart people. For real. Even if the connection is tenuous, as it often is on the interwebs.

By: Margaret

Margaret — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 14:41:53 +0000

Perhaps we need to wait for a SNS that allows users to define their own contexts; Facebook doesn’t map to my world of social contexts very well, nor do the others I’ve tried. We’re not commonly forced to announce how we divvy up the people we know into groups like family, close friend, not-as-close friend, family friend, acquaintance, professional relation, and so forth. And the times that we do have to do so publicly (e.g. choosing who to invite to a wedding) are uncomfortable. It’ll be interesting to see if a SNS can figure out a way to allow users to create their own contexts so they can interact with others in a happy way, while at the same time hiding (or allowing the hiding of) each individual’s classification of others.