Social Media
Week #4
Does Cyber Clustering Make Us Feel Isolated,
Lonely, Depressed, and Intolerant of Difference?
Trebor Scholz | LCST 2031 A | Spring 2009

What You Need To Know About This Course
week 1 Histories of the Internet
week 2 Histories of the Internet and World Wide Web
week 3
Social Media, Cyber Clustering, and Social Isolation
week 4 Participation: Benefits, Numbers, and Quality
week 5 Quality. The Wisdom or Ineptitude of the Crowd
The Web 2.0 Ideology
week 7
week 6 Art and Social Media
Spring Break
week 8
Political Net Activism
week 9
What Does It Take To Participate?
Why Participate?
week 10
Got Ethics? Labor, Work, What?
week 11 week 14
The Power of Users
week 13 Net Neutrality
week 12 Near Future Scenarios
week 15
Presentations
Trebor Scholz | LCST 2031 A | Spring 2009

‘We have reason to fear that the multitude of books which grows
every day in a prodigious fashion will make the following centuries
fall into a state as barbarous as that of the centuries that followed
the fall of the Roman Empire.'
Adrien Baillet (1685) Reading Strategies for Coping with Information Overload.
A. Blair. 2003. Journal of the History of Ideas. 64:11-28.

Vannevar Bush
\"knowledge on call\"
hyperlinked pages and the “memex”
http://tinyurl.com/39mf8l
http://tinyurl.com/3b7h9v

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JhuqbaH9bI&feature=PlayList&p=A38B27ECF0AEB7E3&playnext=1&index=2
Yu-Gi-Oh Episode 99 Isolated In Cyber Space Part 1/2

Is Cyber Clustering Making Us Isolated, Lonely,
Depressed, and Intolerant of Difference?
week 4
Feb 18
Required Reading:
John Palfrey and Urs Gasser, \"Overload,\" John Palfrey and Urs Gasser, Born Digital
(New York: Basic Books, 2008) 185-208.
Your Response. Getting Started:
What struck me most about the text is...
The question that I'd most like to ask the author of the text is ...
The idea I most take issue with in the text is...
The part of the text that I felt made the most sense to me was ...
Trebor Scholz | LCST 2031 A | Spring 2009

TOPIC CLUSTERS Iranian blogosphere http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/sites/cyber.law.harvard.edu/files/Iran_blogosphere_map.jpg

Is Cyber Clustering Making Us Isolated, Lonely,
Depressed, and Intolerant of Difference?
Required Reading:
John Palfrey and Urs Gasser, \"Overload,\" John Palfrey and Urs Gasser, Born Digital
(New York: Basic Books, 2008) 185-208.
Response:
Henry:
- difference between voluntary overload and involuntary overload (at work)
On Cyber clustering
- People are using many different facilities. They are exposed to difference because
they encounter it face-to-face and in the various online forums that they are
joining. People don’t only participate in one forum.
Even experts on a given topic have differences in opinion and interest outside of
the given subject of discussion. Social utilities are not “end-of-all” solutions. “You
go there for a particular reason and then leave.”
Trebor Scholz | LCST 2031 A | Spring 2009

https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A0=new-media-curating
Discussions among experts can be very valuable.

http://www.imtooyoungforthis.org/

Social Media, Cyber Clustering, and Social Isolation
week 4
Feb 18
Suggested Reading:
Vedantam, Shankar. \"Social Isolation Growing in U.S., Study Says.\" Washington Post 23 June 2006. 3 Jan. 2009
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/22/AR2006062201763_pf.html>.
Trebor Scholz | LCST 2031 A | Spring 2009

http://www.happynews.com/

http://www.facebook.com/inbox/#/group.php?sid=26899c8d8e1171870dbb9b163d80f339&gid=7277717670

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e1/Brueghel‐tower‐of‐babel.jpg

download.intel.com/pressroom/images/GettyImage01.jpg

Is Cyber Clustering Making Us Isolated, Lonely,
Depressed, and Intolerant of Difference?
Required Reading:
Ray Oldenburg, \"The Character of Third Places,\" Ray Oldenburg, The Great Good Place
(New York: Marlowe, 1999) 21-42.
Your response. Getting Started:
Which quotes do you affirm?
Do you have a memorable experience of conversing with around a narrowly
defined topic which you know very well?
Which quotes do you wish to challenge?
Trebor Scholz | LCST 2031 A | Spring 2009

http://imagehost.vendio.com/bin/imageserver.x/00000000/baltimoresbest/cheers.jpg

“Compared with 1985, nearly 50 percent more people in 2004 reported that their spouse is the only person
they can confide in. But if people face trouble in that relationship, or if a spouse falls sick, that means these
people have no one to turn to for help, Smith-Lovin said.”
\"We know these close ties are what people depend on in bad times,\" she said. \"We're not saying people are
completely isolated. They may have 600 friends on Facebook.com [a popular networking Web site] and e-mail
25 people a day, but they are not discussing matters that are personally important.\"
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/22/AR2006062201763_pf.html
Trebor Scholz | LCST 2031 A | Spring 2009

“...working two or more jobs to make ends meet, and long commutes leave many people too exhausted to seek
social -- as well as family -- connections: \"Maybe sitting around watching 'Desperate Housewives' . . . is what
counts for family interaction.\"
\"For most of the 20th century, Americans were becoming more connected with family and friends, and there was
more giving of blood and money, and all of those trend lines turn sharply in the middle '60s and have gone in
the other direction ever since,\" Robert Putnam
“Putnam has estimated that every 10-minute increase in commutes makes it 10 percent less likely that people will
establish and maintain close social ties.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/22/AR2006062201763_pf.html
Trebor Scholz | LCST 2031 A | Spring 2009

\"That image of people on roofs after Katrina resonates with me, because those people did not know someone with a car,\" said Lynn Smith-
Lovin, a Duke University sociologist who helped conduct the study. \"There really is less of a safety net of close friends and confidants.\"
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/22/AR2006062201763_pf.html
http://www.katrinadestruction.com/images/d/13132-7/Image+of+house_under_water

Trebor Scholz | LCST 2031 A | Spring 2009

http://www.catster.com/add/intro/
Trebor Scholz | LCST 2031 A | Spring 2009

iWorld ?
Tylor:
“technologies can isolate you from opportunity”

https://www.23andme.com/

https://www.23andme.com/
What if 23andme shares data about your propensity to get certain diseases with health insurance companies or dating sites?

Trebor Scholz
New School University
scholzt@newschool.edu
Twitter: trebors
Blog: http://www.collectivate.net/journalisms
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