PseudorealityPrevails

Old-Skool Social Networking

Ham radio and CB radio were both early forms of "social networking" technology.  In both cases the idea that "we" could talk to "each other," without mediation by the powers-that-be, was inclusive and exciting.  But despite a vibrant subculture for each, neither caught on in the larger population to the extent that Facebook and Twitter have.

I think Ham and CB were held back by their reliance on speaking rather than writing: you talk, and are listened to, now, in the present.  And while immediacy brings more reality to a connection, it also carries with it a lot of pressure.  What if you don't have something to say right this minute?  What if you don't feel clever, or if you speak slowly, or struggle with getting your thoughts in order?  Too bad, time's up!  So the reaction is to avoid it until you do have something to say.  But, since topics in the medium are often provoked by participation in the medium, non-participation cuts you off from the flow of the space. And then avoidance becomes the default and the radio is parked, unused, on top of the fridge or down in the basement.

Current forms of social networking are asynchronous and written, and I think this is key to their success.  Facebook, Twitter, texting and other SN technologies are all typing.  They are posted when you are satisfied with your phrasing, and they are read by others at their leisure, some time later. Performance anxiety is lessened enough by this so that people find all sorts of things to say, and even clever ways to say them.  And the more they participate, the more they have to talk about, as the conversations gain momentum.  The asynchronous buffer is so powerful that people even shrink it to so-called "real-time," typed chats.  But significantly these are still typed, and they are still asynchronous, even if fast; they're not really real-time in the sense that spoken conversation is.  You may have an exchange with others where the responses are separated by only a few seconds; you may go right up to the real event horizon, but you don't cross the written boundary.

Until you decide to stop social networking for the moment and attempt to be actually social.  But that's a different technology entirely.

Keepin' it Real?

Reuters reports that Facebook is terminating accounts with avatar names!!  "You can’t be on Facebook without being yourself," according to the Facebook COO [italics mine].

I'm almost tempted to sign up again.  Almost.

"Dear John" letter to Facebook

Dear Facebook,

We need to talk.

I am breaking up with you.  Things just aren't working out.  I don't like who I am when I am with you; unfortunately, you bring out the worst in me.  You do have some good features, it's true.  But we are going in different directions. 

I could say that it's not you, it's me, but it is you, too.  You definitely have some problems, I hope you get some help.

I know breaking up by blog is lame, but I need to communicate with you in a way you understand.  I would say that I wish you the best, but I am not entirely sure that I do, so I will not say it. 

I took all my stuff back; I deleted your photos and erased all your messages.  Please do not try to contact me again. 

Sincerely,
My Avatar

The Red Men

In The Red Men by Matthew De Abaitua, a British company that creates custom avatars for the wealthy decides to create a custom town to study perfect marketing opportunities.  By interviewing the citizens of a real town in depth, and uploading all the data into the virtual world, the company hopes to virtualize not only the people themselves, but their behavior in large, complex and fluid social groupings.  Once the virtual town goes online, metrics gathered there will so closely mirror consumer interactions in the real world, that the data generated can be used to better sell: widgets, ideas, subscriptions, statis.

In the book, the project collapses in part due to the difficulty of interviewing and surveilling the citizens; it is too labor- and psychologically-intensive.  In RL, of course, we now do this better.  We outsource the data gathering to the objects of study themselves, and have them upload all their information themselves.  Facebook, Threadless, Second Life - all assign the content generation to the end user, which saves time and increases accuracy.  Plus, they want to: it's fun to make yourself Almost Famous for 15 minutes.

This is not necessarily a dystopian tendency, although it could be.  Outsourcing to the end user can be a bloodless way of describing a democratic approach to creativity, enabled by technology.  But it can also lead to a creative cul de sac where every action and hope is measured and met by someone selling you something somewhere.

"Steppenwolf Presents:"

I, or, rather, "I," have two Facebook accounts, both as Second Life avatars.  One is my "real" avatar, the one I use for work, SL building and design, presentations, tutoring, etc.  The other is a "fake" avatar, a group account owned in triplicate by several of us on the project (but mainly inhabited by me) for the purposes of constructing a Cautionary Tale for today's digital generation of transparentists, so they can start to think about how posting the minutia of their social life online might adversely affect them later, in their job searches and workplaces.

I initially joined Facebook only for work, because we were evaluating new technologies such as social networking, and I needed to have some experience with the interface if I might be called upon to design or adapt one.  I used my avatar name and screenshot for the profile photo because I (as the "real" me) have a strong digital presence anyway; if you Google me my portfolio and my articles come up; I'm "found" often enough, I don't think I need to make it easier.  But as I use Facebook more, the account, safely behind the screen of the avatar, is becoming less formal and more playful, more like "me," I suppose, although not fully.  I added a little blogging app to post comments and thoughts on the digital landscape to my friends at work.

The second account profiles a different person, a late-20s extravert, partying her way through her MBA in Marketing.  She's posting all sorts of personal details and photos about her and her friends, adding cute little third-party apps like Beer Pong and Party Space, and generally acting her age.  Which is interesting because it's certainly not how I acted in my late 20s, as I was Very Serious back then, first about Saving the World, and then about Art.  I did have my share of exploits but unless I dig out my old diaries [shudder], the world is not going to know, or care.  Anyway, this second avatar is prettier, dresses much more provocatively, goes clubbing and to social events, and is definitely looking to be out there and connect.  All in Second Life, of course.  On Facebook she sends cute notes back and forth, posts photos, and has lots of digital "friends," because the more the merrier, right? 

So the other night I had to take the second avatar out clubbing to get more photos to post on her Facebook account.  Which entailed some shopping in SL, and then pulling myself away from the things I actually wanted to check out in-world (streaming folk performances, country singer-songwriters, various digital cafes), and over to dance clubs and meet 'n' greet spaces instead.  But while I was grabbing the screenshots I needed, what started to happen is that one avatar got jealous of the other.  And then vice versa. 

The first avatar wanted the cool outfits of the second one, and also the dance animations, so I had to log out and go back in as "me" and get them for her, I mean me, and then teleport to some of the party places so I could see and be seen there, just like the second one was.  Not that I talked to anyone either time, but still.  And now the first one wants to post the better snapshots to her profile, I mean my profile.  But even though I have a more relaxed attitude towards Facebook now, I am not sure exactly how much of "me" I really want up there. 

Then, the second avatar decided that she wanted to be taken seriously and wanted to start a blog and make insightful comments on her experiences like the first one does.  And she wanted to start messaging my friends, but as me, not as her!  So far I haven't let her do that, she has to message people as "her," and I won't let her do too much of that anyway, because they're my friends after all.

Neither of these avatars are fully formed aspects of my personality.  Both have significant false elements, and one would certainly need more than two avatars anyway if we're talking about all the facets of someone's personality, which in addition to being large and numerous, is fluid and not easy to stabilize within subsets of finite components.  Nevertheless, both avatars each have at least some aspects of "me," and some aspects of public faces I have presented at various times and in various places.  Not perhaps the most interesting aspects, but still, I can own up to the parts that are there.

So that's when I realized that I am actually the Steppenwolf (as are we all, according to Hesse).  And these avatars are at play in the Magic Theater, where we anthropomorphize our psychological contents, and externalize our personal fragments, to try out various scenarios as we act our way hopefully out of neurosis and towards health, ideally into the creative and progressive ferment that fully realized social entities can foment.  "Try out this social group, try acting this way."  "Nope, that didn't work, try again with a different approach, and in pursuit of a different goal."  We're doing this in our heads constantly, but we're manifesting and projecting the contents onto real Others and external RL situations, concurrently with the internal dramatic experiments.

And with Second Life being such an easy fit for an overactive introverted imagination, this tendency is augmented in the virtual space.  It is disconcerting and even a little destabilizing to see psychological fragments, part real, part fictional, literally running around in digital bodies in their own virtual worlds.  But, perhaps in this way they are made more overt and conscious.  Which, since conscious things lend themselves more readily to analysis, might be a good thing?

Or maybe I'll just close out all the accounts.

More Weight

Facebook is almost Mercerism.  I don't really like social networking, on the computer or much otherwise, but I had to get a Facebook account as we're evaluating social networking apps for work.  And even though I signed up as my avatar name, and posted as little as possible as first, I find myself adding and augmenting, and commenting, and reading up on others, and jonesing for the app when I am away from it. 

I realized that the draw Facebook has is the community of friends and acquaintances, the slight social buzz you get going into a party where you know just enough people to make it interesting, and you have a reasonable expectation that at least some of their friends will be interesting too. 

That's what drew people to Mercerism in "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?"  They would log in because of the social space, because when hooked up they could feel the emotions of everyone else who was logged in at the same time, as they all projected onto the character of Mercer, a webcast of an old man toiling up a barren mountainscape, in search of the enlightenment at the top.  While climbing, he would be pelted with rocks: few at first, then more, and more.  The rocks would cause real physical injury to everyone who was logged in; as a counterpart to the shared empathy, there was shared pain.  The social high they got was only limited by the amount of rocks they could tolerate being hit with - before reaching some totally empathic merged nirvana, they would suddenly let go of the handles and be logged out, when a particularly big virtual rock hit them on their real heads.

Facebook and other apps of course do not have direct emotion sharing, any more than any mediated relationship, which is all of them.  But it is not too difficult to imagine computers eventually hooked up to sensors and electrodes and biofeedback devices that would complete the physical picture.  And yet even without that, Facebook still emits a powerful emotional draw.  Where is my Mood Organ?  I think I will dial it up to 11.

Think locally, act globally?

Facebook use highlights a discrepancy in how we think about social groups and fame.  The tendency is to act like you're going into a party with friends - you log in, see updates from people you know, advertise things about your own life, see what's happened since you were last there - a persistent, asynchronous multi-user conversation.  You might also have comments or friend requests from friends of friends, or people in groups you've joined, or other pings and attempts at contact, which makes you feel popular and, in a way, famous.  The word is getting out!  Other people are finding out how cool you are!

And therein lies the rub.  It is not a private party with your close friends, or even wider circle of acquaintances.  It is broadcast to the whole world.  It shows up in the whole world's feed as if they knew you; all they have to do is find you.  And they can, because you make that easy.  The more you post, the more groups you join, the more friends you have and events you blog about, the stronger your signal is.

It is self-promotion, but inadvertent in a way.  Because of the emotional illusion of intimacy, of just sharing things with your core tribe, you are perhaps more open than you would be up on a stage, or even on TV with a giant camera in your face.  You have essentially notified all these others of your existence, and invited them into your personal space (digital though it might be).  Which is fine if it's Horton out there.  But not everyone feels so kindly towards "Who"s.