[iDC] Replacing Facebook

Wed Jun 2 18:00:51 UTC 2010

As far as ties are concerned I think facebook mostly covers a middle
ground between loose contacts and close friends. A middle ground that
is growing today because of the ability to manage relationships better
(and perhaps less distinction between work and leisure). And also to
some extent facilitating the movement between different spheres of
relations (finally ending up in the phone book...)

Another socially important role that facebook have filled at least in
Sweden, and which is often neglected, is its role in managing and
organizing events in physical spaces. Clubs, parties, exhibition,
raves, demonstrations, concerts. In Sweden facebook have had a huge
impact on these and directly affected what kind of events are
socially, legally and economically possible to do. Unfortunately this
have led to a lot of them ONLY announcing on facebook. The advantage
for greyzone activities like underground clubs, it is not at least the
ability to give information of the location only at the last moment
and only to a network of (semi-)trusted people.

The post-digital effects of facebook I think is just as large as what
is happening on the site itself.

/Magnus

On Wed, Jun 2, 2010 at 6:42 PM, Jessica F. Lingel
<jlingel at eden.rutgers.edu> wrote:
> The extent to which leaving Facebook results is, in fact, socially detrimental is up for grabs, I think.   (So is the difference between toys and tools.)  How are we measuring social detriment?  My personal (and admittedly pretty bland) opinion is that Facebook is predominantly useful for maintaining week ties, so there may be some social detriments as far as networking there, but strong ties that aren't reliant on social media sites as a sole or predominant form of communication can probably endure fairly easily.
> But about the question of Facebook suicide, is the term applicable to just leaving Facebook or is completely going off the social media grid required?  What about when a user leaves one social media site, but retains accounts on others?
> Given the penetration of social media sites throughout social classes, I think Bordieu's questions about social media and habitus might be more about how different agents as members of classes are using sites like Facebook rather than whether or not they're using them at all.
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
>
>> Date: Wed Jun 02 11:06:20 EDT 2010
>> From: "nathan jurgenson" <nathanjurgenson at gmail.com>
>> Subject: Re: [iDC] Replacing Facebook
>> To: iDC at mailman.thing.net
>>
>> To Andreas' point that Facebook is just a "toy" as a rebuttal to my point
>> that quitting is not a feasible option for many: "Toy" could restated as
>> saying Facebook is a "tool".
>>
>> First, youth today are growing into a world where knowing how to navigate
>> imperfect and profit-centered social networking sites will be an important
>> skill. That is, knowing how to live in public to make friends and other
>> social connections effectively in spite of Facebook's privacy snafus will be
>> increasingly important.
>>
>> Second, and less strategically, if one's friends are all using Facebook to
>> share photos, create event invitations, etc, it would be socially
>> detrimental to quit.
>>
>> And, thirdly, Bourdieu taught us well how my first and second points are
>> actually quite interrelated - that youth will need to learn a successful
>> social media habitus to perform well in the world of the future (or
>> present?). ~nathan
>>
>> >>>>>>
>> Date: Mon, 31 May 2010 11:13:52 -0700
>> From: Andreas Schiffler <aschiffler at ferzkopp.net>
>>
>> Isn't the problem one of collective inflexibility. As Nathan wrote:
>> "however, for many, quitting facebook is not really an option (e.g.,
>> because all of your peers use it)."
>>
>> Why is it not an option? Isn't facebook just a "toy", seemingly
>> empowered by its reach? And if it isn't a toy, what does it really "do"
>> for the users? Quitters need only look for substitute of these "do's"
>> they'd give up online, or maybe more importantly offline as Geert
>> pointed out.
>>
>> --Andreas
>>
>> > On 31 May 2010, at 3:57 PM, nathan jurgenson wrote:
>> >
>> >
>> >> love Dockray's "FACEBOOK SUICIDE (BOMB) MANIFESTO" and the point
>> >> that we can stick it to facebook by gumming up their system.
>> >> database vandalism!
>> >>
>> >> however, for many, quitting facebook is not really an option (e.g.,
>> >> because all of your peers use it). another less extreme route is to
>> >> simply have a "fakebook" where you do not use your real name and
>> >> fill your profile with nonsense information. your real friends will
>> >> still know who you are. you can still use the site to network and
>> >> enjoy what it offers while simultaneously sticking it to facebook a
>> >> bit by inserting so much false information (not to mention it solves
>> >> many of the privacy concerns).
>> >>
>> >> i wrote it up a bit here: "Trade Your Facebook in for a Fakebook"
>> http://contexts.org/sociologylens/2010/05/26/trade-your-facebook-in-for-a-fakebook/
>> >>
>> >> nathan
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