Real Life Social Network v2 - Commentary

I am not Paul Adams The real life social network v2 - Commentary We reviewed Paul Adams’ presentation “The real life social network v2”. We have great respect for him, admire his effort, and wish him the best with his book “Social Circles”. Some aspects of his analysis defer from our findings; therefore we feel compelled to point some of them out. We hope to provide the reader with an additional perspective to real life social networks.

Debbie As reference, we include here Paul’s notion of “groups”. Note that the blue person’s name is Debbie.

Social contexts overlap “Despite trying to mix them, people’s groups remain independent.” – Paul Adams

Social contexts overlap Friend Friends Debbie Friend Friend Similar to Paul’s “groups”, when Debbie interacts with her Friends the same way and shares the same information, she creates a “Friends” social context.

Social contexts overlap Close friends Mom Family School Brother Surfing lovers Bon Jovi fans Debbie’s social life consists, in fact, of a multitude of overlapping contexts. Debbie will relate to her Mom both as a close friend and as a family member. Additionally, she relates to her brother as a schoolmate and also as a family member.

Close ties are often in many social contexts “Managing our identity offline is relatively easy as the different groups in our life rarely overlap in time and space.” – Paul Adams

Close ties are often in many contexts Debbie Debbie is an individual with a physical appearance, some values and ideals, life experiences, many hobbies, and crazy ideas.

Close ties are often in many contexts Debbie A contact When Debbie interacts with a contact, she projects an image of herself. For that contact, it becomes Debbie’s identity.

Close ties are often part of many contexts Debbie Family University Debbie behaves differently in her family context than at the university. Similarly the topics, she discusses in both context are also very different. Debbie knows three people: 1. Joe, a brother 2. John, a brother & a schoolmate 3. Jane, a schoolmate Out of these three, John is the only one who fully knows Debbie.

Public social contexts exist Paul shows private and temporary contexts, but we failed to see public contexts. They are real.

Public social contexts exists Debbie As Paul explains, in private contexts, Debbie decides who exactly can interact with her.

Public social contexts exists Debbie Debbie openly discusses her environmental views among Greenpeace supporters In public contexts, Debbie cannot control who is there, but she will adapt her image and behavior based on rules she follows. Some of Debbie’s public contexts can be: • People with same religious, political or sexual views • Fans of artists she likes • People from her generic network such as school, and office • Practitioners of her favorite hobbies, such as surfers • Business prospects

Thank you And special thanks to Paul for helping us understand Debbie’s social behavior. We feel however that to fully describe the real life social network, additional time is required to better understand the overlapping of social contexts, the meaning of identity and the concepts of privacy. You can also read great articles by: 1. danah boyd 2. Helen Nissenbaum 3. Chris Peterson to name only a few. I work for the context-based social network Hibe. Our team devotes its time to research and develop a social network that correlates our online and offline social lives and emulates them. Cheers, Luc. http://www.twitter.com/hibecom http://blog.hibe.com/social/being-social/

Real Life Social Network v2 - Commentary

by Luc St-Laurent on Jul 15, 2010

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Real Life Social Network v2 - Commentary — Document Transcript