game girl advance: Social Media Making Us Less Social?

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October 29, 2007

Social Media Making Us Less Social?

There's an interesting article by Christine Rosen in The New Atlantic pointed out to me by my old high school buddy Ben Bloch who is now an artist and teacher. Oh, the stories I could tell of 17-year-old Ben! This one time, he hosted a post-prom party at his house, and... ah, sorry, that falls under the rubric that everything done before 18 is permanently sealed in childhood.

Back to the matter at hand: Rosen cites studies and anecdotal evidence that seems to suggest that this explosion of socializing media is actually making us less social in physical incarnations:

The few studies that have emerged do not inspire confidence. Researcher Rob Nyland at Brigham Young University recently surveyed 184 users of social networking sites and found that heavy users “feel less socially involved with the community around them.” He also found that “as individuals use social networking more for entertainment, their level of social involvement decreases.” Another recent study conducted by communications professor Qingwen Dong and colleagues at the University of the Pacific found that “those who engaged in romantic communication over MySpace tend to have low levels of both emotional intelligence and self-esteem.”

Um... being a self-described addict of Facebook and of World of Warcraft I have to wonder about this and really look inside myself. And also to wonder what Danah Boyd, who studies social networks and environments, would make of this. She's been an advocate of these spaces in the past, as places for self-expression and connection.

But I do have to examine my own behaviors, here. Recently I've made some big changes in my life that, in some ways, have isolated me from support structures I used to have. I left my job to become a freelancer, so I'm working from home, alone, a lot; and as far as my personal life goes, I recently ended a relationship, so I don't have that one person I'm accustomed to communicating with every day. In addition a few good friends who were local have moved away... so perhaps it's no coincidence that I am WoWing and Facebooking more.

And what I enjoy about Facebook is precisely what some of the researchers in the studies above may well have been concerned about. I like that Facebook interaction is non-demanding and low-commitment, meaning that in place of picking up the phone and having a real conversation I express myself through "pokes" and playful status updates that hint at both the joy and the turmoil I'm going through. I'm too intimidated, or too reserved, perhaps, to actually ask a friend to talk and demand a response and lay the burden of my troubles on someone else. Facebook interaction serves as an extremely superficial way to keep tabs on a social circle and feel connected, perhaps, without actually being connected.

There's an analogy to be drawn here, I think, between the differences in socializing at a party versus socializing with one or two other people. It's gearing up to be the season for parties, and I've already gone to several. At the last one I realized that while that sort of party socializing is fun and, for me at least, relatively easy, I don't actually find it as fulfilling or as interesting as meeting with friends in a smaller group. I'm not, actually, a networker; I'm a deep-sea diver - if I meet someone new, I like to actually talk to to that person for a little while, getting a sense of the person's philosophy, approach to life, strengths, and points of compatibility.

Bringing this all back to games, my preferences are reflected, naturally, in the way that I play MMOs: I play them as if I am only playing with a handful of my friends. I'm not interested in meeting strangers, in large raids - I don't even really socialize with my guild, outside of a few of them whom I know in real life or from other groups. And this all brings me, in the most roundabout way, to wishing for a new model of game world that lies in between Massively and Single - a persistent world inhabited by only the 150 people whom you can call friend. Just as on Facebook, players can join multiple networks and groups if they like.

I have no idea how feasible this is, technically speaking; I just wonder how well it would work to serve social purposes in action....

Posted by jane at October 29, 2007 10:07 AM | TrackBack

Comments

I want to start wearing bracelets (or blog widgets, perhaps) that say "WWD(anah)B(oyd)D?"

Much of the fretting in Rosen's article over online vs. offline socialization is just an update of the hand-wringing that's been going on since BBS times. I did like that she touched on the uncontrollable immediacy of social nets, like announcing a breakup on Facebook. Shifting people's notions of "private" and "public" spheres might be the biggest change that's being driven by this generation of social networks.

I wonder if Rosen has spent much time on Yelp or Upcoming, social sites that exist primarily to augment our offline lives?

Posted by: joshlee

on October 29, 2007 10:59 AM

So I take umbrage at the part you block-quoted.

Apparently heavy uses of SNSs “feel less socially involved with the community around them.” Maybe it's purely the result of a cultural bias because people assume "social involvement" necessarily means face-to-face involvement.

And then the other study found that “those who engaged in romantic communication over MySpace tend to have low levels of both emotional intelligence and self-esteem.” Uhh. Compared to which control group? If you're comparing MySpace users to your average person who doesn't use MySpace... well shit, whaddya know, the teenagers who use MySpace have lower self esteem and EIQ than your random Joe on the street. "Teenagers are confused and sad." No shit. Now, if that same study compared teenagers who use MySpace to teenagers who don't use MySpace, you still need to consider danah's observations that MySpace teens tend to be the "loser/outcast/queer/poor/minority" teens and Facebook is largely for college-bound privileged teens. Does this make teens who use no SNSs a decent control group at all? Probably not. It's probably a self-selecting group.

Posted by: dariusk

on October 29, 2007 12:29 PM

Isn't this simple displacement? If you spend more time in community A, you have less in community B. That's just common sense. It doesn't mean you're actually less sociable.

The issue for me is far more about the form of that interaction. As a bloke with the usual tendencies to shyness of the geek and gamer, not to mention a fair dose of vagueness, I'm wary of anything that limits my ability to read people; I can't afford to lose that extra information. (And people are kinda cool anyway and deserve not to be missed.) I'm also extremely distractable by any kind of game or flippant popculturality, which cuts down on both incoming and outgoing emotional traffic, and tends to make the tone of what does go on lighter than is sometimes strictly honest.

The profile thing is a bit weird for me too... even if I wanted to just sum myself up for the rest of the world, which I don't particularly, I find the framework a very poor fit for most people I know, both in terms of available answers and in terms of priorities. I could go into why, but I think that's a conversation for my friends... it's an interesting but personal vein of thought I want to keep mining. But I don't think you can know anyone just from those questions about gender, preference, age etc - or even favourite movie/book/tune/game. Even people's causes don't tell you the real stuff: are they kind? Honest? Do they take care of the people around them? Themselves? What are their gifts and weaknesses? And so on.

I guess I prefer diving to surfing too; I prefer treasure to prizes.

Thanks, as ever, for a thought-evoking reflection and pointers to nifty articles. Enjoy Iceland!

Posted by: PhilM

on October 30, 2007 06:25 AM

I can't believe I almost missed out on the chance to describe spending time with my friends as "immersive"...

Posted by: PhilM

on October 30, 2007 06:46 AM

With facebook/myspace i found the original joining and finding out who-was-up-to-what interesting, but that is pretty much where it ended.

I agree with you as well about the interactions... on WoW, i dont really want to meet new people. I would like to play with the people i play with, who number in about 5-10, and if they are not online, i pretty much want to solo. Is it bad that i am tired of new, online people?
I would like it if in something like wow, a huge world, there were only people i knew, quasi-knew. Like my own island. And if you see someone, you know them.
Tho i find that SORT of happens in WoW as you level, there are only a certain # of people at your level, who are able to run instances with you - so you have generally seen them from the day you created your first character. You like some of them, you know their skills, you dislike others. Tho i guess that all changes with 70. Im not at 70 yet. QQ

Posted by: Girl_from_Mars

on October 30, 2007 07:50 AM