The Unintended Consequences of Social

Networking 

What is Social Networking?

We define social network sites as web-based services that allow individuals to (1) construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, (2) articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and (3) view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system

http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol13/issue1/boyd.ellison.html

Comparison to blogs, etc.

• Social Networking sites are self-containedo People who love Facebook

tend to stay in Facebook and link to others within the site

o Difficult to link out• Blogs, Twitter part of online

social networko The primary purpose is not

to connect with peopleo Expression

Rise of social network sites

 

Individual unintended consequences

• The Bado Blurring the line between personal and professional liveso The TMI factor--finding out more than you want to know

about colleagueso Losing job opportunities because of the drunken picture

you postedo Being stalked, harrassed, etc.

• The Goodo Blurring the line between personal and professional liveso Finding out new and interesting things about colleagueso Keeping up with far flung colleagueso Employment and other opportunities

Societal Unintended Consequences

• Commercialization• Privacy and security concerns• Manipulation through the network• Mediating relationships and businesses through proprietary

applications• Changing social fabric• Ownership of identities and identity-related data

Clueless

Teenagers are learning how to use social networks by interacting with their friends, rather than learning these behaviors from their parents or teachers. . . . Often parents have no clue about the information teens are publicly revealing (Sullivan, 2005).

 

It's always been about "monetizing"

Last September, Rupert Murdoch purchased MySpace from Intermix for a reported $580 million cash buyout. Currently, “Murdoch is getting: a gold mine of market research, a microscope into the content habits and brand choices of America’s capricious youth market — not to mention millions of potential new customers for News Corp.’s Fox subsidiaries.” [10]. . . . The commercial aspect of the site is quite apparent.

Marketers who target teen consumers can use stated, personal information gathered from social networking sites for purposes other than what users intend.

The Government wants that info, too

In post 9/11 America, government agencies appear to be doing the opposite [of protecting privacy]. In 2005, the Department of Defense proposed to create a marketing and recruitment database to track students for military recruitment. According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (2005), “Among the information kept on students were ethnicity, phone numbers, e–mail addresses, intended fields of study and extracurricular activities. The record system even included parents’ attitudes about military recruitment.” [16] But, the system was set up before notifying the public, a violation of the Privacy Act.

But that information can be used for good

We have vast amounts of data that can be reapplied to investigate fundamental questions about social organization and about morality and other concerns that have perplexed us forever.

Social Graph of Facebook connections