Is social media making people less sociable?

[tzijlstra]

So it's an internet services taxonomy?...additionally I never claimed social media did not have positive effects.

 

I would not disagree with your points on that basis.

 

There is no agreed definition of social media nor an agreed taxonomy, the closest to a "sort of" generally accepted definition is by Kaplan and Haenlein (2010) who describe it as "Social media is a group of internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, and that allow the creation and exchange of User Generated Content."

 

The key-dispute being exactly the same as here, that it is built on the foundations of Web 2.0, the contention there being that Web 2.0 in itself is not definable as anything other than a buzzword.

 

The strength of the definition lies in their use of internet-based applications and the creation and exchange of user generated content. You could see the internet as a group of technical platforms and within that group you could find social media, within that group you can then find things like Facebook, Twitter but also forums and even mailing-lists.

 

The core of this debate goes back to the debate of the two Tim's (ironically ) where Tim Berners-Lee did not hold back in calling out Tim O'Reilly's popularisation of the expression of the term Web 2.0 in 2005 as if it was something new. According to the first Tim, the internet is inheritently a social medium. It was invented decades before the WWW as a means to communicate, communication being mostly a social function, his WWW was designed from the ground-up to be a communication platform, his whole idea was that people would be able to communicate more effectively with each other using computers.

 

It is worth noting that at this time there were already internet platforms that can retrospectively be classed as social media, IRC, e-mail, mailing-lists, MUDs, Telnet and so on. The general public might consider social media as being Web 2.0, but that is definitely incorrect due to Web 2.0 being a marketing expression rather than a well-defined protocol or format. In fact, it is easy to dismiss social media as nothing more than a paradigm for social interaction on the internet and it would be remiss of me not to state that as a post-modernist.

 

Nothing is black and white, everything is situational

[ubermaus]

Web 2.0 in itself is not definable as anything other than a buzzword.

 

I never knew that, you learn something new everyday and who could argue with the creator of the internet? but still I can't change my position on classifications of site..

 

I would class web 2.0 as sites like Tumblr (web 2.0 has a use in my book)

I would class social media as facebook etc.

I would class forums, as any forum. Sheffield forum, Mumsnet etc. etc.

 

Course there are distinctions and variations within these terms...

 

That's how I've always understood it and heard it explained from an industry standpoint.

 

So technically I'm not disagreeing with media that is social= sheffieldforum. Sheff forum is much closer to social media than other forums...I was wrong in that respect.

 

But 'social media'? why not give it the proper name 'community phpbb forum'?

[Halibut]

 

 

But 'social media'? why not give it the proper name 'community phpbb forum'?

 

Because 'community phpbb forum' contains an acronym that no one understands and is therefore hard to understand.

[skinz]

 

But 'social media'? why not give it the proper name 'community phpbb forum'?

 

 

Is that what you called the one you ran for 4yrs?

 

---------- Post added 12-03-2015 at 20:02 ----------

 

Because 'community phpbb forum' contains an acronym that no one understands and is therefore hard to understand.

 

Plus he just googled and found it, and thought 'I'll sound clever'..like he did with 'taxonomy".

[ubermaus]

Because 'community phpbb forum' contains an acronym that no one understands and is therefore hard to understand.

 

The point is its a forum.

 

---------- Post added 12-03-2015 at 20:30 ----------

 

Is that what you called the one you ran for 4yrs?

 

---------- Post added 12-03-2015 at 20:02 ----------

 

 

Plus he just googled and found it, and thought 'I'll sound clever'..like he did with 'taxonomy".

 

Whatever pal!

[tzijlstra]

That's how I've always understood it and heard it explained from an industry standpoint.

 

The industry will always seek to use buzz-words, it is great for marketing and probably what drove the whole popularisation of the topic in the first place. I have worked with some of the top semantic web-developers in the world, they frequently found themselves arguing with commercial developers that Web 3.0 was nothing but a buzz-word that they had developed to sell the semantic functionality. When testing their actual knowledge about the topic (and I was present at one such occasion) the developers very quickly turned out to have a very shallow and narrow-minded view, blinkered by their own knowledge and not able to see outside of that perspective.

 

To be fair though, developers have a difficult enough job staying informed into minute detail about their areas of expertise as it is, whereas the guys I worked with had the luxury of operating in an academic environment, enabling them to take a helicopter view. So once again, nothing is black and white.

[ubermaus]

The industry will always seek to use buzz-words, it is great for marketing and probably what drove the whole popularisation of the topic in the first place. I have worked with some of the top semantic web-developers in the world, they frequently found themselves arguing with commercial developers that Web 3.0 was nothing but a buzz-word that they had developed to sell the semantic functionality. When testing their actual knowledge about the topic (and I was present at one such occasion) the developers very quickly turned out to have a very shallow and narrow-minded view, blinkered by their own knowledge and not able to see outside of that perspective.

 

To be fair though, developers have a difficult enough job staying informed into minute detail about their areas of expertise as it is, whereas the guys I worked with had the luxury of operating in an academic environment, enabling them to take a helicopter view. So once again, nothing is black and white.

 

You are a scholar indeed and a gentleman.

[janie48]

Is this the kind of thing you're referring to? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vu-_V02if_k

[MonkeyLover]

I have many "real life" friends (some of which are also Facebook friends), I am quite a sociable person and also have many workmates.

I love Facebook! I like to have a nosey about what people are doing, and there are lots of Facebook groups that I am a member of, (recipes, history groups, buying and selling, some specific Sheffield-related groups etc)

I also play a Facebook-linked game with my Facebook friends across the world, people who I have never met, and never likely to. I can chat to these people too, via one if the groups. We chat about anything.

Facebook can be very useful too, helping to locate old friends, missing pets, asking for witnesses to road accidents, lost property, road conditions etc.

 

So, Facebook actually makes me more sociable that I would be otherwise.

 

It is very useful too for people who are disabled, and are unable to get out and about and meet friends in the conventional way, and the lonely.

[Cyclone]

It's very basic almost monkey-like logic. You've took an insert from an article, spliced it together with part of a post in a linear fashion and THATS YOUR EVIDENCE? tenous to say the least...

 

All you've highlighted with my post is that was an opinion. It's clear it's not 'evidence' in a scientific sense nor did I claim as such.

 

It's a bit like your counter opinion that it must be my friends. Absolutely no scientific basis whatsoever although you've claimed this to be fact / logic:hihi:

 

You did read the Daily Mail article? then you know it was based on a study..

 

---------- Post added 12-03-2015 at 18:46 ----------

 

 

For sure. But I'm not in the minority of one. Hence the links.

 

The quote from the scientific study is more evidence than you've provided. Which are instead links to news stories, where journalists misinterpret science due to not understanding the difference between association and causation.

 

The fact is that your "evidence" is anecdote. And anecdote is NOT evidence. Your friends (my friends, anyone friends) are going to be a biased sample, they are clearly not a random sample and so are not representative.

Edited March 13, 2015 by Cyclone