Submitted by Brian Britt on October 22nd, 2008 to the On-line Interaction and Facilitation Seminar, Fall 2008, Purdue University, Dr. Sorin A. Matei via the I Think Blog
(http://www.matei.org/ithink)
Abstract
The internet has grown into one of the largest media of the 21st century. A common assumption is that people participate in online communities in order to socialize and form relationships. However, the lack of personal identity creates an environment in which users seek to be heard, not to interact. Some of the most successful social networking sites are geared toward self-expression. Those that try to emphasize socialization suffer from having an obscure audience and eventually tend toward self-expression. Future research includes a possible inverse relationship between free speech and social support, and the relationship between lurkers and contributions.
Introduction
Over the last two decades, online communities have grown exponentially in popularity. Just as 56k modems have been replaced by T1 networks, our interactions with, as Howard Rheingold described, our “family of invisible friends” (Rheingold, 2001, p. xv) have exploded in frequency.
This is not to say that our online activities are the same today as they were 20 years ago. The days when we were excited to send an E-mail are long gone. That thrill has been replaced by guild assaults on possessed dragons, demon lords, and bikini-clad warlocks in World of Warcraft.
Even if our activities change, however, online communities themselves persist. From visually intoxicating role playing games like World of Warcraft to bulletin board systems reminiscent of Rheingold’s WELL, we can’t pull ourselves away from the virtual venues. Even Facebook’s bold claim of “110 million active users” is somehow unsurprising (Statistics, 2008).
More than anything else, the internet is a place for self-expression. According to Jeremiah Owyang, senior analyst for Forrester Research, one in every four Americans has a blog on MySpace (Owyang, 2008). Factor in the number of people who use websites like Facebook – which passed MySpace as the #1 social networking site in April 2008 – and it is clear that the majority of people today actively use the internet to express themselves.
Our online social activities are not as clear. Many people join online discussion groups to talk about particular topics. This may appear to suggest that socialization is an important reason for joining an online community. What is often lost in these supposed interactions, however, is whether people are forming social bonds or merely announcing their own views back and forth as if in a debate. Can anyone really say he or she is online to interact with others if no one ever bothers to see who is hiding behind the username?
Why do people join internet communities? Do they do so to meet other people and form relationships? Or do they do it simply to be heard?
The Invisible Me
One of the first facets of internet use that an neophyte may notice is that, when you do something, no one is watching. If you go to the library to search for a book, you never know when an acquaintance could appear for a chance encounter. When you run a web search, not only are results retrieved in seconds, but your identity remains hidden behind your IP address.
The same is true of most online communities compared with those in the “real world.” If a person unthinkingly says something foolish to her peers, it could negatively affect their impressions of her on a long-term scale. There might be broader consequences if it involves someone in a position of authority, such as an employer. Her salary might be affected, and it could inhibit her ability to obtain a positive reference if she ever seeks employment elsewhere.
On the other hand, aggravating an authority figure online would have a minimal impact. Her salary would certainly be unaffected, and it would not make it any harder to look for a forum elsewhere. The worst-case scenario would be for her to find a different venue and use a different username. No matter what happened in the past, she could always start over with no consequences.
This is an essential element of the internet. Anonymity makes it a safe haven in which anyone can say anything and not face retribution later. This is largely the cause of some communities experiencing what John Seabrook (1997) called “thrashes.” A thrash was a “wild, raging battle” (Seabrook, 1997, p. 152) that might have erupted into a fistfight had it occurred anywhere but online. Thanks to usernames and a few miles of space, even the most intense fights left few scars.
Some social media take an extreme approach toward anonymity. 4chan, for instance, does not tie posters to a particular name. Users may choose to adopt a username before posting, but there is little point in doing so since anyone else can assume that alias at any time. Therefore, members cannot develop their reputations and there are almost no consequences for what is said.
Does the complete absence of personal identity – which increases users’ freedom to speak but eliminates the network between members – help or hurt activity? Considering that 4chan is “one of the Internet’s most trafficked ‘image boards’” (Sarno, July 12, 2008, n.p.), and that it averages over 150,000 posts per day in the least-regulated subforum alone (Grossman, July 10, 2008, n.p.), free speech seems to be the primary concern.
In general, internet users want to be noticed. This was reflected by Ling et al. (2005) when they attempted to emphasize different social aspects of online communities in order to increase contributions. All but two of their methods failed. Assigning more difficult goals to communities marginally increased activity; more importantly, however, emphasizing the uniqueness of contributions had a significant positive impact. The more that others notice your comments, the more likely you are to talk.
People don’t have to be friends with you or even know who you are. All that matters is that they recognize that you are some entity who is doing something.
Hey, Look at Me!
The idea of “social networking,” heavily emphasized by Facebook and MySpace, seems to suggest that online communities foster social interactions between their members. However, this claim deserves further scrutiny.
What is the nature of a “social network”? According to boyd and Ellison, the idea has changed in the last several years. “Early public online communities such as Usenet and public discussion forums were structured by topics or according to topical hierarchies, but social network sites are structured as personal (or ‘egocentric’) networks, with the individual at the center of their own community” (boyd & Ellison, 2007).
Facebook, the sixth-most visited website in the U.S. (Owyang, 2008), is an excellent example of a “social network” that pays little attention to the group. Consider one of its most unique features, the use of “applications.” These are programs that individual users create which may be used in the profiles of others on Facebook.
While applications range from Scrabble clones to Easter egg hunts, examine the most actively used apps: “Photos,” “Super Wall,” “Top Friends,” and “Video” (“Application Directory,” 2008) Of these four, only “Top Friends” would appear to emphasize interaction, and it is actually used simply to rank one’s acquaintances: telling them what you think. The other three, “Photos,” “Super Wall,” and “Video,” combine to transform any Facebook profile into a traditional blog.
At first glance, this might seem to support social interaction. The idea of the “blogosphere” has been publicized as a way in which ordinary people can engage in discussion in the public sphere (Kornblum, 2003). However, “diary-style personal blogs make up the heart and soul of the blogosphere” (Kornblum, 2003, n.p.). Few people jump into political discourse through their blogs, but half a decade ago, hundreds of thousands had blogs ranging “from teen journals filled with angst to young professionals musing about their jobs and lives” (Kornblum, 2003, n.p.). Blogs offer minimal interaction, and Facebook doesn’t go far beyond that level.
It’s not as though Facebook hasn’t tried to create a community using its apps. For instance, the application “Chat!” has almost 370,000 monthly active users. That sounds like a lot until you compare it with “iLike,” the 14th-most used application on Facebook, with over 5 million monthly active users (“Application Directory,” 2008). By this measure, it would seem that telling people what songs you like is over ten times more important than actually talking with them. In fact, each of the top five apps has over 15 million users. The unimportant “Chat!” doesn’t even rank in the top 100 (“Application Directory,” 2008).
If that wasn’t enough, consider the biggest difference between Facebook and traditional communitas: the lack of interaction with other users. Yes, it’s possible to communicate with your friends, but everyone beyond that is nothing more than a name and a shrunken avatar. With the exception of those who hack the system, users are unable to even view any profiles aside from those of their friends.
The natural consequence of this is that it is difficult to connect with anyone outside of one’s pre-existing social circle. While early communitas like the WELL encouraged free interaction, today’s biggest social network has instead artfully restricted it. What results, then, is not a massive community of 110 million members but a collection of small groups composed of people who the user already knows.
Why visit Facebook at all, then? There are two main reasons. The first is simple: fun. With a seemingly innumerable number of user-created applications, it’s hard for many to stay away. Who doesn’t like using “SuperPoke” to throw flaming bags of poop at others (“Application Directory,” 2008)?
This example also satisfies the second purpose of Facebook use: the illusion of attention. It’s nice to think that other people care about what you say online. That’s the whole purpose of a blog, after all. While “Chat!” does little to turn Facebook into a community, “SuperPoke” gives any user a chance to yell, “Hey everyone, look at what I just did!” (“Application Directory,” 2008)
Facebook is all about the user, not interacting with others. Aside from “Super Wall,” which lets readers post responses to the user – very much like the often-overlooked “guestbook” on many blogs – most of the top applications offer no opportunity for feedback. In the end, Facebook serves as an opportunity to stand on a pedestal and preach.
The Invisible Audience
Websites that actually try to create communities are another matter entirely. The WELL is far from outdated; countless bulletin board systems, Wikis, and other variants now walk along the trail it helped to blaze. Doesn’t that mean, then, that many internet users come online for the social aspect? Could it be that they strive to be part of a community?
Since many modern online communities resemble the WELL, it is helpful to look back to this beginning. The WELL, which started as an extension of the Whole Earth Catalog, was primarily a group of intelligent, middle-aged baby boomers looking for a club. Larry Brilliant first proposed the idea of an online community to Stewart Brand in 1984. Past failures had taught Brilliant that a certain collection of people was necessary to make his idea come to life, and he “thought he could find that ready-made user community around Stewart Brand” (Hafner, 1997, n.p.).
This is exactly the problem. The WELL’s origins were a group of people who were already connected. People didn’t find the WELL through a search engine; they heard of it through their friends, who had in turn learned of it through their friends.
In fact, many of the most memorable interactions between “WELLites” occurred offline, at organized functions hosted by moderators. As Rheingold said, “The WELL felt like an authentic community to me from the start because it was grounded in my everyday physical world…. By now, I’ve attended real-life WELL marriages, WELL births, and even a WELL funeral” (Rheingold, 2001, p. xvi).
As such, the WELL wasn’t a community of its own accord. It merely offered another venue in which people who were already connected could communicate.
What of social networks that aren’t tied to the physical world? Do people visit those websites in order to socialize?
Kiesler, Siegel & McGuire (1984) offer evidence to the contrary. As they noted, “Communicators must imagine their audience, for at a terminal it almost seems as if the computer itself is the audience” (Kiesler, Siegel, & McGuire, 1984, p. 1125). Once again, the audience is a faceless entity – the diary is no different than ever, even if it uses circuits.
Of course, over 20 years have passed since that initial research. Modern social networks have new features like avatars and signatures with which we can put a face to a name. Yet, studies suggest that these tools make little difference. Internet fanatics were stunned by Kraut et al. a decade ago when they reported that internet use actually caused loneliness and isolation rather than enhancing personal connections (Kraut et al., 1998).
In a further exploration of this topic, Walther and Parks (2002) explored the “cues filtered out” model proposed by Culnan & Markus (1987). In doing so, they recognized that the internet, a “lean medium,” was not the best choice for social interaction, a necessarily complex phenomenon (Walther & Parks, 2002, p. 533). Further, the main reason that a medium would be used for any purpose for which it was ill-suited was if other options failed. “Even if a FtF meeting would be most efficient, such meetings cannot always be held on the spur of the moment; we walk down the hall to pay someone a visit but find the office empty, and telephone calls go unanswered, leaving e-mail, perhaps the last choice, as the first among unequals (Walther & Parks, 2002, p. 533).
This drives to the crux of why people join online communities for self-expression rather than socialization. There are many ways to socialize. Perhaps the most relevant in this case is to join a face-to-face group and interact with those people. This is, as Walther and Parks might suggest, a more efficient and therefore more likely method of fulfilling that need.
Self-expression, on the other hand, is much different. If a person writes his thoughts in a journal, no one else will read it. Sending letters would help him reach a few people, but not many. Phone calls would have similarly ineffective results. A letter to the editor of the local newspaper might result in a few hundred or thousand people seeing the message – assuming it gets published. The average person can forget about mass media like TV, which might otherwise be an ideal option for self-expression.
The internet, on the other hand, is open for all to use. Anyone sitting at a computer can join a group and start talking immediately. There’s no need to even buy web space: the platform on which users speak has already been purchased on their behalf. Better yet, anyone in the world may, at some point, see their messages. It’s a cost-effective, easy-to-access medium with theoretically unlimited viewership.
All other options for speaking to the masses have serious detriments. The internet stands out as the best option.
Critiques and Future Research
Several authors have rallied behind the idea of online socialization. This is unsurprising, as Rheingold described his own experiences with the WELL and its members as “realer than we had bargained for” (Rheingold, Rev. ed., p. 325). Since the WELL was so heavily based in offline interactions, its realness makes perfect sense.
Others such as Wellman (2001) arbitrarily defined online communities as serving a social need, citing qualities such as “The ability to connect with multiple social milieus, with limited involvement in each milieu,” “Increased choices in milieus in which to get involved,” and “The decreased commitment of each milieu to its inhabitants’ well-being” as important social points. In fact, the first two statements strongly support the notion that the internet can best be used for self-expression – you can speak anywhere about anything – while the latter shows that online social support is minimal.
Ridings & Gefen (2004) attempted to pose a significant counterpoint, listing friendship as the second-most important reason for joining an online group behind information exchange. Their research is problematic, however, because they did not measure the importance of self-expression in relation to the other variables. Some of their noted respondents, in fact, indicated such a desire:
– “I like talking about baseball”
– “I can easily let out my emotions here and others will understand.”
– “also because some times its easier to write things down than to say them” (Ridings & Gefen, 2004, n.p.)
These self-centered responses need to be explored beyond their initial categorization; otherwise, we cannot conclude that free speech is less important to people who join online communities than socialization.
The ability to speak freely may, in fact, be inversely correlated with the level of social support. Consider the case of Megan Meier, who committed suicide after being ostracized on MySpace (Parents, Nov. 19, 2007). Lori Drew, who allegedly drove Meier to suicide, was only brought to charges because she registered on MySpace under a fake name. The charges against her, though, have prompted legislation that could prevent future harassment but reduce freedom to speak online (Jesdanun, May 18, 2008).
Another useful avenue for research would be the role of lurkers. Those who view a community but contribute nothing to it clearly violate the principle of joining a group in order to be heard. Are lurkers true members of a community? What motivates them to transition from lengthy silence to active contributions? Are they trying to acclimate themselves to their environment before jumping on their metaphorical soapboxes? How does the presence and magnitude of lurkers impact the desire for others to contribute to a particular venue? Are lurkers more or less important to posters than their fellow contributors?
Motivating people to contribute to online communities is a difficult process. By analyzing the effects that regulations and viewers have, these groups can better cater to their members’ need to speak.
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