In a social networking site that is truly extensible and robust we wouldn’t feel the urge to move on. Restarting on a shiny new site or culling or pruning your “friends” on an existing site wouldn’t be necessary. But we have been misled. Social networking doesn’t have to be all or nothing. We shouldn’t feel constricted in how we express ourselves on a given site. And to exacerbate the issue, some of us are misleadingly tied to our online social networks. For example, some people feel obligated to update their profiles constantly or to accept friendship/relationship requests (regardless of their relationship to the requester), particularly those that rely on the Internet to construct their professional persona [0]. The bottom line: these social networking sites [1][2] continue to fail us as a society.
Why do so many exist? Why do so many fall by the wayside as we progress? Why does each and every attempt at social networking eventually fall to its successor?
The answer to the first question is simple – new social networking sites crop up because of need or because of fad. No one site has all the required features for its user base. Why do social networking sites fail as time progresses? Well, some would argue the maturity level of the user base has changed. Or, more often these days, perhaps the site’s interface is more Web 2.0 friendly, and everyone wants to be on the Web 2.0 bandwagon. Your friends jump ship, you jump ship. Finally, the user’s social network constructed on the site changes. As you mature, you leave one social network for a new social network. For example, the mass migration from Friendster to MySpace and now to facebook. Still others would argue the usage of the site is tied to user interface: this argument being that facebook is more “mature” than MySpace. The end result of this interface maturity is the same as others. Some people leave, others follow. Some even suggest a class bias between the sites, thus alluding to the fact that as one’s class changes, so does their social network (and thus the social networking site to which they should belong)[3]. Finally, perhaps we are merely sheep, following one another from one social network to another.
Regardless of the specifics, the users of these sites inevitably leave, thus forsaking their previously well-developed social network on MySpace for a new social network they must construct on facebook. And this is doubtfully an isolated incident – as soon as facebook’s yet-unheard-of young competitor, social.blah.org.net.com.dontcare, appears on the scene, another mass migration will occur. Or perhaps the reason for this migration is the users of these sites are leaving to shed – shed previous acquaintances, previous friendships, previous lifestyles.
This mass migration from social network to social network is merely a side effect. It is tied to the way those websites create implicit relationships. They ask, “Did you know this person?” while forgetting to ask, “How would you like to know this person NOW?” Life experiences previously allowed us to prune our network based on lifestyle changes. You grow, you change, your relationships change, perhaps you even shed relationships – that is the natural evolution.
Current social networks inhibit this natural pruning and the evolution of real-life social networks[4]. This is no longer the case with the rise of facebook and MySpace. But perhaps you don’t want to “shed.” Perhaps you like your old friends, but not in “that way.” Perhaps you would like tighter control of how your information is sent to your social networks, or more specifically, how your “social flows” are constructed. While such pruning of social networks has been proposed[5], it is not effective in that it is not driven by you, but by simple inferences about the populous as a whole. And besides, who says you actually want to “prune?” Perhaps you’re just lacking fine-grained control.
Only you can define how you want your social flows to actually work in the present, and in the future. Or rather, you should be able to define your social information flows and the social networking site should support you in doing so. And eventually your social networking site should create these flows for you, based on your existing flows. You shouldn’t have to rely on some coarse-grained all-or-nothing approach. Such is the case with current social network sites.
You add a friend, you remove a friend. That is all you can do. They can read everything, they can write to everyone. Coarse-grained filters aside, they are similar to you in that they lack controls over what information flows to whom, or more precisely, how they socialize in general. You are in or you are out. There is no in-between on current social networking sites. There are filtering tools in facebook[5], but for the most part they are coarse-grained with respect to the filtering of content, not quite capable of expressing how your information is shown to your social network.
In addition to the coarse-grained nature of social information flows, there is the problem of duplicated information being presented, cluttering the consumable information on individual sites [6]. This often results from people wanting to share information with multiple social networks, a side effect of wanting to maintain multiple online personas. Some people create multiple personas to communicate with multiple distinct social groups online. For example, my Twitter network and my facebook network are distinct. Yet at the same time, most of the information I’m posting makes it to both networks. Thus, people following me on Twitter and facebook must consume the information twice, once on Twitter, once on facebook.
To reiterate, social networking sites currently provide coarse-grained control over who sees what parts of your profile [7]. They aren’t totally living in the dark ages. The downside to the current approach is still the fact that is remains all or nothing. There exists no middle ground in which you can control which information flows to which person. Sure you can set up groups, but who wants to go through all of that work?
A novel proposal is in the works. One that allows you true flexibility in constructing your online social network. One that doesn’t represent an all-or-nothing approach to social networks. One that doesn’t leave you questioning your own social network members and how they interact with you. Instead of a wide-open network that exchanges all information to all people, you will be able to create your own network and define how the information flows between the people or groups in your social network. Finally, you will be able to define your own social matrix, and you will be able to evolve your social matrix as your life changes. You won’t have to shed or prune friends [8]. This network will be able to learn or make inferences about your socialization style. And it will eventually learn how you socialize based on numerous aspects of your life.
Thanks to Vitak, Brandon, Josh, and Justin, for the inspiration for this post. Oh, and IPAs.
[0] About Spencer
[1] Facebook
[2] MySpace
[3] Viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace
[4] Scott Brown on Facebook Friendonomics
[5] The Future Of Facebook’s Feed Is Granular Filters
[6] Eliminating Cross Posting in Social Networks
[7] 10 Privacy Settings Every Facebook User Should Know
[8] Pruning Social Networks Using Structural Properties and Descriptive Attributes
