stealth mode: responsiveness will approach zero

There’s this amazing trend that happens. At the beginning of every semester, i come out from hiding, participate in public life, conferences, etc. I meet people. But i’m on a different cycle than other people because as soon as i meet people, finals come around again and stealth mode is on and all of those new ties fade away unless they make sense post-stealth mode.

For those who don’t realize, i made the foolishly naive mistake of thinking that i could balance 6 weeks of travel, 3 hardcore grad classes, TAing, help organize two different intellectual gatherings, etc. Social life does not exist. And much of digital life will be on pause for a bit.

From now until June, please realize that my response rate will be arbitrary at best. In fact, there’s a high probability that i won’t touch most of my email until June. I’m already too far behind to catch up. I am traveling for all of April and will be finals-ing in May (feeling the pain for my stupidity). I will not be attending social events or group gatherings, except for ASSA.

My apologies. I don’t know how to better handle this situation right now.

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clarifying the Viegas survey

I’ve heard people quote Viegas’ survey pretty regularly and i find the tendency to generalize quite dangerous. As she notes, this cannot be done because of the snowball methodology. Please note what she states in her caveats:

Respondents to this survey were not selected on a random basis. Announcements for the online survey were posted to mailing lists within MIT as well as on a few high-traffic blogs published by people known to the author of this survey. The viral nature of blogs meant that the links to the survey page quickly spread to many other blogs. Nevertheless, this does not qualify as a random sample of the blogger population and, as such, the results from this survey cannot be generalized to the entire blogging community; instead, these results are representative of the state of affairs in certain portions of the blogging world.

This pilot study is a great first pass at these questions… I really hope folks follow up on them rather than generalizing from them.

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an aversion to mail

When i read an aversion to mail on Foe’s blog, it made me smile. And then i found myself repeating the story in diverse social settings all week. So it must be blogged cause i know this is something i’m going to want to re-read a few years from now.

“When he died, piles of letters, packages, and manuscripts sent by admirers were found, none of which he had opened. In fact, the only letters he did open were letters from publishers, and then only very cautiously: he would make a tiny slit in the envelope and then shake it to see if a check appeared. If it didn’t, then the letter would simply join all those other things that can wait forever.”

From an account of Faulkner in The Threepenny Review.

Like Foe, i despise the phone. With a passion. But i can’t say that i like mail that much more. In fact, i just got an email from a dear friend asking if i was going to attend her wedding. And i felt super uber guilty because i could bank money that her invitation was probably sitting in the pile of mail that i haven’t checked since November. It was. I rely on changing addresses so regularly that mail doesn’t follow. I read all of my bills online (i won’t sign up with anything that doesn’t have an online account system). I’ve also opened mail so late that the checks have expired. Then i feel stupid. Of course, that’s what direct deposit is for.

As i get older, i learn to despise all forms of mediated communication. The problem is that context is lost. When i look focused, my roommates know not to interrupt. With mediation, i can usually cue people that i can’t IM. But then there are the spammers. They’ve invaded. Every. Aspect. Of. Mediated. Communication. We’ve got the telemarketers and the junk mail. Email is crawling with them. I turned off SMS because of them. Hell, i have to do blog cleansing more often than car flyer cleansing these days.

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Intimate communities: social/emotional support, technology and the gender divide

[Cross-posted to: Misbehaving.net.]

With social networks all the rage in places like Silicon Valley and the DoD, most of the focus has been on how social networks can help you access information, find jobs, track terrorists and, all to often, abuse your connections for personal gain. I just reread Claude Fischer’s “To Dwell Among Friends” and various other social network papers.

Historically and broadly speaking, men and women have different types of social networks and use them for different purposes. For example, most men don’t have any trusted emotional confidante other than their wife. Men use their social networks to address functional needs; women are more likely to use their networks for social/emotional needs. Women were classically the group who maintained a family’s community social ties.

While tools may not being built to explicitly help people people manage their social/emotional support networks, they are obviously being used that way. From soc.support Usenet groups to LiveJournal to mailing lists and IM/SMS, people are often using technology to reach out for social/emotional support. There’s nothing more calming than logging into AIM and seeing your buddies all displayed. Often, that peripheral display provides enough social support to not necessitate certain kinds of communication. This is shared context, an opportunity for intimacy.

When we talk about production of information, we’re often focused on the kinds of content that can be assigned metadata and useful to everyone. Yet, much of the content that we share in everyday life is about maintaining intimacy. We check in with one another. We share {{hugs}}.

So, i have to ask… what kinds of social/emotional support does technology provide you? How? Is this about supporting everyday interactions or providing access to a whole new world of support?

[This entry is based loosely on Joi Ito’s discussion of “Full-Time Intimate Computing.”]

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