Dramatis Personae

[psyllogism]

There definitely seems to be a convergence of ideas happening in the social web space. The world went from blogging to MySpace profiles to Facebook wall posts and Twitter updates pretty quickly, until now it seems to be an equilibrium of features in most social websites. We can quibble on whether or not there should be a "dislike" button on

Comments

[linarien]

There are ads on here? Huh...I've never seen one. Are you using the "AdBlock Plus" add-on for Firefox? I'm pretty sure that's what is swatting those flies for me.

The networking thing is just too much bother for me, for the most part. I keep up this and a Facebook and that's it. (I have a MySpace that I simply haven't deleted, from the pre-Facebook era.) I have the Facebook set not to share anything unless I friend someone on purpose, and I hardly go on that at all. The point of Twitter escapes me entirely...

[psyllogism]

Good point on AdBlock plus. Normally, I actually feel like I should support the website owners and give them ad impressions. But the LJ ones have just been so tremendously awful these past few months.

I suppose I still ended up talking more "technology" than "social" on my social technology essay. The benefits, to me, are:
1. Reach almost everybody I want to reach, at once, with minimal effort
2. Take the time to craft my message with as much precision as I can (as opposed to in face / on phone conversations where one has to think on their feet)
3. Keep a record of my interactions so I can remember what went on.
4. People can choose to read my posts and discussions or not, whenever they want. I don't have to rely on them to be available at that very instant to hear about whatever I'm thinking about.

This applies to all the social technology that I consider using.

Love the user icon, btw :-)

[psyllogism]

Your own explorations of identity have impressed me greatly (especially your "annual experiment" with explicit multiple personalities a couple years ago), and influenced some of the ways I think about personal identity.

I'd definitely support more social networks allowing people to more explicitly present different personae to different people on the web. It would be extremely interesting, at the very least. I'm surprised it hasn't sprung up yet, but I'm glad that at least other people such as in the analysis I linked to are thinking about it.

[magus341]

More and more I see myself as a content generator/consumer rather than trying to represent myself in any particular way. I don't put anything online that I think would be embarrassing or private, nor do I try to create personae (at least not intentionally). I think technology will make it harder and harder to conceal things about yourself. I'm sure there will be creative destruction and new and better versions of twitter and facebook coming out every few years. Who knows where we'll end up.

[psyllogism]

Can "you" really be separate from the content you generate, or even from the content you consume? I'd argue that it's still a "representation" of "you". It's smart to not put anything embarrassing or private online, sure. But more than once I've wanted to share a thought to people on Twitter/Facebook but censored myself because I knew my aunts and uncles on their would find it offensive, but I still value having them as a Facebook friend because I get to see updates about my family. If Facebook supported different personae more easily, that would be a great value, IMHO.

Everyone has different social personalities between work, play, family, etc. Why not support that in a social website? Concealing some things from some people (i.e., having different personae) is, I believe, psychologically healthy.