The Era of Facebook Is an Anomaly 260
An anonymous reader writes "Speaking to The Verge, author and Microsoft Researcher Danah Boyd put words to a feeling I've had about Facebook and other social networking sites for a while, now: 'The era of Facebook is an anomaly.' She continues, 'The idea of everybody going to one site is just weird. Give me one other part of history where everybody shows up to the same social space. Fragmentation is a more natural state of being. Is your social dynamic interest-driven or is it friendship-driven? Are you going there because there's this place where other folks are really into anime, or is this the place you're going because it's where your pals from school are hanging out? That first [question] is a driving function.' Personally, I hope this idea continues to propagate — it's always seemed odd that our social network identities are locked into certain websites. Imagine being a Comcast customer and being unable to email somebody using Time Warner, or a T-Mobile subscriber who can't call somebody who's on Verizon. Why do we allow this with our social networks?"
Re:It's called (Score:4, Interesting)
A strange game. The only winning move is not to play.
Re:Laughable (Score:5, Interesting)
The basic premise, that it is an anomaly for us to come together into a common social space, is so ridiculous that I have to wonder what her agenda is for making such a blatantly false claim.
People came together from their community to the marketplace to socialize. People came together at church every single Sunday.
Beyond the reaches of the individual community, people of almost every faith used to come together for pilgrimage, allowing them to socialize with other members of their faith from far away places and become more worldly and less ignorant. This was considered a moral duty.
The point isn't to go where people who are your friends are, or to go to places where people who are into the same hobbies. The point is to grow as a human being by leaving your comfort zone.
The real anomaly is in the walls that keep us from knowing each other. It keeps us weak, powerless and under control.
Re:Talking outta ass (Score:4, Interesting)
kids have already jumped ship. once their parents started 'fb-ing' they figured it was time to find something else.
they won't last in the spotlight forever. the whole social networking thing is like a swarm and swarms never stay in one place forever. another will pop up and the swarm will go there (or a few places).
the thing that annoys me the most is that webmasters seem to feel compelled to put up those stupid F and T icons and to join in that nonsense. if you are a company, you 'have' to be on both of those mindless services.
I'd like to see some icons that proudly state 'I'm NOT on fb or tw. I have no icons and nothing for you to follow me on'. I'd have more respect for the business if they put THAT on their website.
Re: (Score:5, Interesting)
> by leaving your comfort zone.
How is socializing with other members of your faith leaving your comfort zone? Church IS your comfort zone. So is the marketplace where you gather with FRIENDS.
>The real anomaly is in the walls that keep us from knowing each other.
Like the one that surrounds facebook, and the walls within facebook that prevent certain interactions between its members.
There can be only one. (Score:5, Interesting)
Two words: Network effects.
Facebook succeeds not because it's anything special, but because a critical mass of the population uses it, and each person can independently decide the shape of their "community". If I meet someone new in the real world, and want to keep up with what's going on in their life, odds are we're both on Facebook. Nobody else offers that. A new competitor could start that was 100x better than Facebook in every technological way, but until they reached a critical mass of users nobody would care.