Social Web 2.0Implications of Social Technologies for Digital Media

Shelly Farnham, Ph.D.Com 597 Winter 2007

Week 9 Social Coordination Mobile

Social Coordination

Within my known network/group On the large scale, mega collaboration

and collective action Mobile

Social Coordination: in my Network

Social Goals: Socializing: Hang out with friends, share experience pre, during, post Coordination: Communication, planning Social networking: Get to know new (similar) people Belongingness: Sense of connection, belonging Smart convergence: go to best places with people I like the most

Core concepts: Address challenge in Bowling Alone: technology as enabling face to face

socializing Technology integrated with day to day social practices. Don’t “leave” your

social activities to use technologies (e.g., desktop) Lightweight lightweight lightweight

Supporting Cycles of Social Events

Awareness of people, events

Communication Inviting Coordination Planning

Joe

Amy

Bob

Jen

Apart Together Apart (Repeat)

Joe Amy

Bob Jen

Joe

Bob

Amy

Jen

Meet Socialize Experience Share

Awareness Communication Share Re-experience Meet

Technology Support

Questionnaire Studiestechnology and social life

Time Socializing with Friends by Type of Communication

0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5

Hours per Day

Face to faceChat or IM

Cell phone voiceOne to one emails

One to many emailsLand line phoneCell phone SMS

People actively using People actively using social technologies to social technologies to communicate with communicate with friends.friends.

45 people (21 male and 23 female)45 people (21 male and 23 female)Educated, 30 yrs of age, artists and professionalsEducated, 30 yrs of age, artists and professionals

0 1 2 3

Face to faceEmailsPhone

Mailing listsSMS

Chat/IMBlogs

Web communityOnline games

Hours per day

50 people (32 men, 18 women) 35.5 years old, 90% had 50 people (32 men, 18 women) 35.5 years old, 90% had at least two years of collegeat least two years of college

Impact of Use of Technology on Quality of Friendship Relationships

Bold = p< .05

Questionnaire Studiestechnology and social life

Cell phone SMS2%

One to one email18%

One to many email

10%

chat or IM11%

Cell phone voice24%

Face to face21%

Land line phone14%

People actively use People actively use technologies to technologies to coordinate social coordinate social activities with activities with friends.friends.

Percentage of social activities planned through Percentage of social activities planned through different types of communication.different types of communication.

Questionnaire Studiestechnology and social life

Where do I go to find people like me doing stuff I also want to do?

Online: Email Evite Meetup Event reporting

Mobile

Using Social Technologies for Social Coordination

Mega Collaboration and Collective Action! Mega-collaboration is the idea that the collective

behavior of millions of people can form a constructive environment where value is derived from the mass of actions even though each individual action is done purely for the sake of the individual user. -- http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9708b.html

Collective action: cooperation and coordination amongst large groups of people towards some goal.

Mega collaboration in technology:

The web! Wikipedia User

generated content, remixed

Collective action: MoveOn.org

Transforming political campaigning

3.3 million users

Howard Dean and Meetup

140K members in meetups, across the country

Grass roots collective actionCoordination from

the bottom up

The September Project

42 Entertainment

Ilovebees Goal:

building buzz around Halo launch

¾ million active players

2.5 million casual players

Mobile

Hyper awareness Hyper coordination Smart convergence

CMC, Impact on Peripheral Awareness and Smart Convergence

Asychnonous, e.g., email, SMS Awareness and coordination over time and place

Broadcast, e.g., mailing lists Awareness and coordination with many people

Mobile, e.g., cell phones, PDAs Hyper-awareness and hyper-coordination (Ling & Yttri): in time, in place updates and changes of plans (social

spider in her web)

Mobile -- Social Awareness Mizuko Ito (2001) studies of teen use in Japan:

Sense of intimacy, always on, always connected, outside tyranny of parental control

Presence, importance of always being available to social network whether or not co-located

Maintaining connection and identification with group Sara Berg & Alex Taylor (CHI 2003) UK teens:

Text messages as social exchange, gifts, precious Grinter & Eldridge (CHI 2003) UK teens:

Importance of address book, indicating place in social world, who’s connected to whom

Teens very aware of who’s in each other’s list, making sure they stay in

Mobile -- Smart Convergence Smart Mobs:

Groups that coordinate activities and mobilize at a moments notice, e.g. activists, Star groupies, Flash Mobs

“Smart mobs emerge when communication and computing technologies amplify human talents for cooperation” Howard Rheingold

Swarming: “Linturi, the father of teenage daughters, was one of the first observers of

the way young people use text messaging to coordinate their actions: ‘there were endless calls. ‘no, no, it’s changed—we’re not going to this place, we’re going over here. Hurry!’ It’s like a school of fish.’ By the time Linturi and I met in May 2001, the term ‘swarming’ was frequently used by the people I met in Helsinki to describe the cybernegotiated public flocking behavior of texting adolescents.” -- p. 13. Howard Rheingold, Smart Mobs, Perseus 2002

Sidekick

Smartphone

Flipper: enabling ‘life presence’ through lightweight photo sharing

Scott Counts, Rysjard Kott

Main screen

Mobile Flipper Desktop Flipper Current photo sharing: web based, email, photo phone

Flipper photo sharing: simple, people-centric, persistence, mobile-desktop integration

Experimental field study:● Overall: more photos shared,

more fun, more social, greater group awareness

● Mobile specific: easier, more fun sharing, viewing; more photos viewed more times

SwarmPedram Keyani, Shelly Farnham

in time, in place SMS broadcast communication

Coffee

Sends <Coffee caffeine?> to swarm

Swarm Server

Shelly

Receives <Shelly: caffeine?>

Shelly to coffee: caffeine?

Swarm Field Study

Created group called “party”, 8 to 14 people over 14 weeks, told people for sending reports on social events

Log from a Saturday Night

John to party: anybody at Jasons or Nova? Report? Kat to party: I am going to Nova John to party: Nova report? Mary to party: So uh, oh yeah, where is Nova? Sally to party: Nova at goldies. we at chac Larry to party: dont know anything about Novas…Jasons is pretty

mellow

(names changed to preserve privacy)

Field Studymessage content

Party Report 41%

Invitation 18%

Question 16%

Bond Building 15%

Request 1%

Party report w ith address

9%

Field Studyusage

0

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

3.5

4

4.5

5

Sun Mon Tues Wed Thurs Fri Sat

Day of Week

Avg

Mes

sag

es s

ent

Used primarily weekend nights.Used primarily weekend nights.

Field Studyimpact on social life, at 14 weeks

4I read messages sent to Swarm

2.3I sent messages through Swarm

3.2Swarm reduced the amount of time I spent coordinating social activities through other forms of communication

3.4I used Swarm in situations where it would have been inappropriate to talk via cell phone

3.8Swarm helped me figure out where I wanted to go at times

3.5Using Swarm made me feel more connected to my friends

2.2Overall, I found Swarm confusing and/or difficult to use

3.7Overall, I liked Swarm

MeanQuestion

4I read messages sent to Swarm

2.3I sent messages through Swarm

3.2Swarm reduced the amount of time I spent coordinating social activities through other forms of communication

3.4I used Swarm in situations where it would have been inappropriate to talk via cell phone

3.8Swarm helped me figure out where I wanted to go at times

3.5Using Swarm made me feel more connected to my friends

2.2Overall, I found Swarm confusing and/or difficult to use

3.7Overall, I liked Swarm

MeanQuestion

1 = strongly disagree, 4 = strongly agree1 = strongly disagree, 4 = strongly agree

“I liked hearing from people I knew, getting little updates. It was like little windows into my friends’ lives.”

“I first thought that it would be useless and not fun. Spamming people with party messages didn’t seem like a good idea. Then once I actually heard about a party going on that I didn’t know about, Swarm became cool – I had a great time at the party and would have missed otherwise. One such time is enough to get you addicted.”

“it helped me get together with them at a cool place, which I definitely like…I loved it when I was at a party and wanted people to come, I could just fire off a message and a few minutes later, people were on there way from multiple locations.”

Field Studyopen-ended questionnaire responses

A year deployment “Party”

group still existed and was increasingly used, though capped at 25 people

Several active splinter groups created by advanced users

People using multiple groups

Swarm Messages by Group, Feb to Aug 2004

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

802/

24/2

004

3/2/

2004

3/9/

2004

3/16

/200

4

3/23

/200

4

3/30

/200

4

4/6/

2004

4/13

/200

4

4/20

/200

4

4/27

/200

4

5/4/

2004

5/11

/200

4

5/18

/200

4

5/25

/200

4

6/1/

2004

6/8/

2004

6/15

/200

4

6/22

/200

4

6/29

/200

4

7/6/

2004

7/13

/200

4

7/20

/200

4

7/27

/200

4

8/3/

2004

8/10

/200

4

8/17

/200

4

Mes

sage

s P

er W

eek

iPhone

Discussion Points

Importance of life stage Importance of cultural context Social digital divide? Always on = always distracted