As sociologists, we frequently use inequality as a lens to examine various dimensions of social life. A blog post by Jenny L. Davis illustrates how the non-use of technology (in this particular instance, due to lack of access) may not only be a manifestation of the so called “digital […]
#nonuse (2/2)
The non-use of digital technology – with all its forms, motivations and consequences – has been one of my key research interests for well over a decade. I am particularly fascinated as I increasingly encounter a tight-woven overlap with #a11y and #privacy.
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The impact of social technology’s non-use on its users is sometimes abstract to explain. But every now and then, the issue surfaces in very accessible manner as in an editorial piece by Radhika Sanghani on the Telegraph. While active social media users, through constant sharing of detailed […]
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Back in November, Nathan Jurgenson, the scholar who earlier coined the term “digital dualism” to describe (and challenge) the belief that online and offline lives are separate entities, wrote an article on The New Inquiry titled “The disconnectionists”. The essay examines […]
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The Private Side of Social Media ypulse.com
Whisper is a SNS where people share secrets, entirely anonymously.
The rise in popularity of these curated apps that do more to shelter their users from judgement and the marring of their “real” personas has been brewing for some time. However, now it is truly emerging as a new […]
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A patent document was published by the US Patent and Trademark Office on November 19, describing a system developed at Google that analyses a user’s accounts on social network sites in order to provide half-automated reactions to relevant activity within these. From the patent […]
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A few days ago, I noticed an interesting item on my LinkedIn feed that serves to illustrate one of the instances how non-use may manifest itself in social web services. A message featured in the news feed encouraged me (and likely a large number of others) to congratulate a former colleague for her […]
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“Leave your phone behind”, a recent writing by a NYC startup CEO on LinkedIn gained quite a bit of traffic and comments when Rafat Ali suggested to create short periods of disconnection from the omnipresent network and its distracting forces. Both in the article and the 100+ comments by […]
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A paper titled “Limiting, Leaving, and (re)Lapsing: an Exploration of Facebook Non-Use Practices and Experiences” by Eric P.S. Baumer et al., presented in May at CHI 2013 (slides), sheds some light on the practices of Facebook non-use and people’s experiences with them. While the […]
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About 10 years ago, technology researchers started to discuss voluntary non-use in contrast to the prevailing assumption that non-use is an involuntary state. In their 2002 book chapter “They came, they surfed, they went back to the beach: Conceptualizing use and non-use of the […]
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The Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project published some interesting non-use related numbers related to Facebook, in a report titled “Coming and Going on Facebook”:
61% of current Facebook users say that at one time or another in the past they […]
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Earlier this year, some media outlets pinpointed that the Facebook user statistics published by social media analytics platform Socialbakers would indicate a decrease in the absolute number of “Monthly active Facebook users” over the last six months in the US, Indonesia and the UK. Even […]
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Looking at the trace of “non-users” in the history of technology research, the work of James E. Katz and Ronald E. Rice is not to be missed. In their 2002 book “Social consequences of Internet use: access, involvement, and interaction” , they describe a research project […]
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Diagnosing the IRL Fetish » Cyborgology thesocietypages.org
I do not think the physical is inherently more real than the digital. I do, however, think that the affordances of digital technologies enable abundant production, and in doing so can water-down the meaning of an object and/or interaction.
Jenny L. Davis compares the […] -
The Onion: Internet Users Demand Less Interactivity theonion.com
Given The Onion is a satirical magazine, this article is so spot-on it could – from my own conversations with “users” – just as well be about factual research:
Tired of being bombarded with constant requests to share content on social media, bestow ratings, leave […]
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The IxDA Helsinki October meeting was an evening filled with discussions about the current state of interaction design, the industry and new ideas. Paavo Westerberg rocked the house with an insightful and lively presentation about 15 Golden Rules for creative processes and event host Idean shared […]
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Ever since I first read the publication on the 2010 study of communication technology use by Finland’s official statistics service (Tilastokeskus), I thought it would be great to visualise some of the data contained. In particular, I wanted to dissect the “official” […]
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The Guardian summarizes a contemporary genre of “cyber-sceptic” literature, such as Sherry Turkle’s “Alone Together”, “The Shallows” by Nicholas Carr, “The Net Delusion” by Evgeny Morozov, and others – and also presents some critique of that […]
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Using Sociology(!) to Explain Unfollows on Twitter ayman-naaman.net (via archive.org)
Many studies, in academia and industry, in computer science and sociology (this one too), examine creation of new ties in social networks, but very few examine tie breaks and persistence.
Mor Naaman on a paper written with two colleagues (PDF) about a little-researched […] -
This research aims to provide a framework for the consideration of non-users in the context of social interaction design (SxD), in particular for the design of social network sites (SNSs). The theory of “The Absent Peer” consists of two core concepts, presenting the network aspect and the sociality aspect how non-use influences SNS concepts. Herein, the focus of the work is on the discovery of the impact of non-use rather than on its reasons. Building on the insights from the study, this report presents the conceptual considerations for the creation of valuable SNS concepts that acknowledge non-use as a permanent and complex phenomenon of social reality. The work is based on the sociological perspective of symbolic interactionism. Social interaction design is presented as a practice within the discipline of interaction design, with its goals defined through a discussion on user value and worth-centred design.
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Clive Thompson in Praise of Online Obscurity wired.com (via archive.org)
An ode to keeping things small and obscure: Clive Thompson argues why “socializing doesn’t scale”, as communities beyond a certain size are more anonymous and lead to less interaction.
the world’s bravest and most important ideas are often forged away from the spotlight — in small, obscure groups of people who are passionately interested in a subject and like arguing about it. They’re willing to experiment with risky or dumb concepts because they’re among intimates. (It was, after all, small groups of marginal weirdos that brought us the computer, democracy, and the novel.)
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Facebook's move ain't about changes in privacy norms zephoria.org
Like myself, danah boyd just “wanted to scream” when Mark Zuckerberg proclaimed privacy to be dead.
Privacy isn’t a technological binary that you turn off and on. Privacy is about having control of a situation. It’s about controlling what information flows where and […]
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Is it possible to opt out of social networking? jonoscript.wordpress.com
Here’s an interesting blog post bringing together questions of technology non-use (or more accurately: its apparent impossibility in certain circumstances) and privacy:
My friends did not ask my permission before giving Facebook all this information about me. Why would they? […]
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In an extensive historical analysis, Adam Thierer provides a comparison between internet optimists (“Theuthian Technophiles”) and internet pessimists (“Thamusian Technophobes”). Evaluating, but not judging, he concludes:
The sensible middle ground position is […]
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Brain Error: No space left on device : every108minutes every108minutes.com (via archive.org)
Keith Brophy puts a spin on the theory that “anthrophony” (the noise pollution created by humans, specifically by their machines and other non-human sounds) disrupts the carefully compartmentalized “biophony” (the soundscape of various species in nature) of nature, by […]
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Social topiary cennydd.co.uk (via archive.org)
Cennydd Bowles suggests the term “social topiary” to describe the phenomenon/experience of more input (via digital media) than a person can handle. […]
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