friendship

EnemyGraph: blasphème ou ruse de l’amitié sur Facebook ?

social capital, social networks, , , , ,

On m’a souvent entendu parler d’amitié et d’inimitié dans les réseaux sociaux. De l’amitié à l’heure du numérique, autant dans le chapitre « Mon friend n’est pas mon ami » (v. mon ouvrage Les liaisons numériques, Paris, Seuil, p. 270-277 – que vous trouvez résumées ici) que dans plusieurs interventions publiques  détaillant les tenants et les aboutissants du friending. D’inimitié, plus récemment, dans mon effort de théoriser la conflictualité et les liens négatifs en ligne.

 Donc, quand le toujours admirable @affordanceinfo m’a signalé aujourd’hui le lancement d’EnemyGraph, une nouvelle app qui permet de déclarer des ennemis sur Facebook, j’ai fait un bond de surprise. Créé à la University of Texas par Dean Terry et ses étudiants Bradley Griffith et Harrison Massey, l’application promet de faire le contre-pied de l’ethos de l’amour et de l’amitié forcées de Facebook et de réaliser le rêve longtemps refoulé d’un bouton dislike. Mais comment ça marche ? Selon Terry le tout est basé sur la notion de « dissonance sociale », voire l’évaluation des liens existants entre usagers selon leur désignation de personnes, choses et lieux qui leur déplaisent:

EnemyGraph is an application that allows you to list your “enemies”. Any Facebook friend or user of the app can be an enemy. More importantly, you can also make any page or group on Facebook an “enemy”. This covers almost everything including people, places and things. During our testing testing triangles and q-tips were trending, along with politicians, music groups, and math.
Dean Terry EnemyGraph Facebook Application [visité 26 Mar. 12]

https://www.facebook.com/dialog/oauth?client_id=283355878374166&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Funreliable.me%2Fenemygraph%2F&state=07b77244aed7a4e474ffb47b0f3b9189&canvas=1&fbconnect=0&scope=publish_stream%2Cpublish_actions

(more…)

Taking liberties: why feeling closer on social media can lead to higher conflictuality

social capital, social networks, , , , , , , ,

A short note on an apparent paradox highlighted by Ronald E. Anderson on the blog Compassionate Societies. While commenting on a recent PEW survey on the “tone of life” on social networking sites, the author points out two interesting facts :

1)  heavy social media users are prone to conflict (and, more generally, a lot of users experience negative interactions, physical fight and even end up breaking friendships because of online communication)…

2) ..yet overall people declare they feel closer to others, more compassionate and feeling good about themselves.

How can this contradiction be explained? According to the author “social networking is a mixed bag of good and bad”. I, for one, would like to suggest another way of interpreting these results: social media users are not hostile despite the fact they feel closer to one another. Rather, they are hostile because they feel closer. Closeness primarily comes to mean that users approach social media sites with higher expectations about friendship and togetherness. Social networking might thus imply adopting a social style characterized by a hypertrophied sense of intimacy, verging on liberty – like in the expression “taking liberties”: being too friendly in a way that shows a lack of respect to others.

Facebook “friending” rhetoric plays a part in this process, of course: by spreading an irenic vision of harmonious social life, any deviation from emotional proximity is perceived as a major break in the code of communication. In this sense, while interacting in the informal environment of social media, individuals not only fail to cultivate deference, but they even come to think of it as a transgression of an implicit social norm, as a manifestation of distance – or, worse, indifference – that compromises social cohesion and introduces an element of mistrust conducive to conflict.

Friendship changes, but 'friending' stays the same across cultures

social capital, social networks, , , , , , , , , ,

Following in Judith Donath and dana boyd’s researches on online friendship and drawing on social network analysis of tie formation, this Hui-Jung Chang article sets up to detect cross-cultural variations in ‘friending’ between a US-based service (Myspace) and a Taiwan one (Wretch).

ResearchBlogging.org
Hui-Jung Chang (2010). Social networking friendships: A cross-cultural comparison of network structure between MySpace and Wretch Journal of Cultural Science, 3 (2).

Understandably, Taiwanese and US cultures have different approaches to friendship. The author characterizes Taiwan as a more collectivistic culture where explicit messages and content exchange are less important that  the context (all the information either coded in the physical setting or internalized in the person) for establishing who’s your friend. US, on the other side, is defined as a “low-context”, individualistic culture [note: pictures are just random. Neither peace sign nor thumbs up in photos appear to bear any significant effect on friendship formation]. Consequently, Hui-Jung Chang formulates the hypothesis that Taiwanese offline friends networks are larger and denser. Does the same apply to online networks?

(more…)

Simulating online presence : mercredi 17 février au séminaire w2s

body, social capital, social networks, , , , , , , , ,

Mercredi 17 février 2010 à 10h, j’interviens dans le cadre du séminaire W2s – Web 2 Social Sciences coordonné par Dominique Cardon. Le séminaire a lieu à la Cantine – Silicon Sentier. Ce sera pour moi l’occasion pour présenter les résultats préliminaires de la recherche commencée avec Paola Tubaro (University of Greenwich) en 2009 sur l’application des méthodes mixtes (quali et computationnelles) pour l’étude des réseaux de sociabilité en ligne. Je vous laisse lire le résumé en espérant que cela stimule votre curiosité.

Simulating online presence : l’apport de la modélisation multi-agents à l’étude de la formation des réseaux sociaux en ligne

Intervenant : Antonio A. CASILLI (Centre Edgar-Morin, EHESS)

Lieu : La Cantine – Silicon Sentier, 51 rue Montmartre, Passage des Panoramas, 12 Galerie Montmartre, 75002 Paris (view map)

Résumé : Cette présentation porte sur le rôle de la légitimation des descriptions physiques dans les interactions sociales assistées par ordinateur. Je vais présenter un modèle multi-agents construit à partir d’une observation participante menée au sein du réseau Facebook. Les résultats préliminaires montrent comment différentes configurations de trois éléments (présentation de soi, options de protection de la vie privée et pratiques de partages de contenus en ligne) affectent inégalement les modalités de légitimation réciproque des identités déclaratives et – finalement – concourent à la formation de réseaux d’amitié en ligne aux formes et aux caractéristiques multiples.

L'amitié dans le Web 2.0 : le powerpoint de mon séminaire à l'Institut Telecom

social capital, social networks, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Violà le powerpoint de mon intervention dans le cadre du cours Quelle éthique dans la société en réseaux de l’Institut Télécom & Management SudParis, coordonné par Pierre-Antoine Chardel. Un merci à tou(te)s les étudiant(e)s pour leur questions et leur attention !

Mes “friends” ne sont pas mes amis : transformations de l’amitié à l’heure des réseaux sociaux

(more…)

New paper shows social connectivity is not declining (not because of Internet, anyway)

social capital, social networks, , , , , , , ,

ResearchBlogging.org

Hua (Helen) Wang, & Barry Wellman (2009). Social Connectivity in America. Changes in Adult Friendship Network Size from 2002 to 2007 American Behavioral Scientist

The story so far, can be summarized as follows: since the beginning of the Web, a significant amount of researches has being focusing on the inverse correlation between online connectivity and face-to-face interactions. In social sciences, this is known as “the Internet Paradox”, after the title of an influential article published by Robert Kraut (1998). In a nutshell,  Internet can be regarded as a “social technology that reduces social involvement”. Consequently user’s well-being and social ties could be negatively affected by computer-mediated communication.

This argument was so compelling – and so remenescent of the common sense claim that “since computers are around, people don’t talk anymore” – that the Internet paradox long outlived its scientific credibility. Some years later, Kraut himself made amends for it in a follow-up article, admitting that his argument had to be “rivisited”.  He went back to observe the very same families of the previous study and found the negative effect of online communication on social life had disappeared. Not only, but he even detected positive effects of using the Internet on communication, social involvement, and well-being. A hell of a retraction, if you ask me.

Now, as epistemologists know, bad theories are difficult to flush out. Especially when you have people who can exploit them to serve their political agenda – or to spin themselves a cheap media story, as recently a certain British fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine did.

Luckily for us, Canadian sociologist Barry Wellman has been fighting against this research trend since its first apperence. And luckily for us, these days he seems to be prevailing. (more…)