Case Story: Am I the sum of others?
Case Story: Am I the sum of others?
| Summary | Social network "friends" as expression of personal identity | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Group / workshop | Digital Identities | Status | seed | |
| Project details... | ||||
Situation
What was the setting in which this case study occurred?
N.B. This case story deals with the scenario of social interaction with people you do not know in the physical world and have not had prior contact with online. I stopped using my Twitter account over the winter break. When I returned to it a 'follower' list had built up, so I decided to catch up. Faced with a list of strangers I began thinking about the selection criteria - who do I chose to follow and why? Twitter is just one example of a social network that places emphasis on friends/followers but there are of course countless others. Services like Friendfeed make it increasingly possible to track most of our interactions across most social networks; and in the process of doing so they reveal our core group of followers/friends.Task
What was the problem to be solved, or the intended effect?
In the case of Twitter, there are three main information sections that influence follower selection criteria. See the screenshot below. 1) Profile information. This consists of a name, location and a 2-3 line bio blurb. 2) User statistics. This consists of a 'follower' count, a 'following' count, a Twitter post count and a block of graphic avatars reflecting a selection of people that this person has chosen to follow. 3) The Twitter stream. This consists of this person's 20 most recent posts on Twitter.
Actions
What was done to fulfil the task?
Action is, as in above example, to...- pick a particular friend/follower in your social network
- break down the actions that lead to the selection of this friend/follower
- for each action outline the possible influences guiding your decision (psychological, material etc)
- through the results, attempt to answer the overall question:
Results
What happened? Was is a success? What contributed to the outcomes?
Unfortunately, as of yet I have not had time to go through the above actions in any detail. The parameters need far more rigorous thought and attention to detail if this 'experiment' were to be of any value. At this point the above sketch raises some broad questions on the psychology of friend/follower selection; and on the relationship between a social network (group) and a single user (individual) in the context of influence on digital identity.Lessons Learned
What did you learn from the experience?
Still working on it…Licensing
This work is licenced under a Creative Commons Licence.
