netWorker - Winter 2009

information was a public record; today, it’s truly public.

The same holds for information we share about ourselves. For most of us, who lack the thousands of Facebook fans or Twitter followers attracted by media stars and personalities, we seem to indulge in innocent sharing on a small scale. In fact, the potential audience is as vast as any Hollywood star, and what we share may be out there much longer than we imagine. (We might reasonably say forever, but a business or technical failure of a company like Facebook can wipe out a lot of data.)

Facebook’s interface gives users
some control over how information
is released, including how to limit
particular status updates to particu-
The blending of online social
worlds also means interesting avenues
of work for technical innovation by
social scientists and designers of com-
puter systems, as well as possible col-
laborations for both. Social scientists
might want to know how our online
behavior affects our real-world, in-
person relationships—exploring how
we create and establish social bound-
aries. A substantial body of research
explores how people behave online,
though most involves online communi-
ties that formed precisely because they
were online. A common observation is
that people can become antagonistic
or hostile in online communications in
ways they would rarely display in per-
son. It is common to see such “flaming”
tional about incorporating concepts
about social structure.

THERE’S A DEEPER ASPECT TO WHAT HAPPENS TO OUR SOCIAL
GROUPS WHEN WE TAKE THEM ONLINE: THEY BEGIN TO INTERACT
WITH ONE ANOTHER.

lar groups. However, many users are unaware of them, so they commonly settle for default (and more public) settings. Even if we use them, we can have trouble figuring out how to draw boundaries for our interaction and consistently stay within them. Regular Facebook users should employ privacy settings to define how they want their information presented to the public, as well as to their friends. However, as with all online sites, if we really don’t want it public, it’s best not to put it out there at all. Many other sites, including Twitter and MySpace, also have privacy settings and ways to control access others have to our information, so are always worth exploring.

in groups that communicate mostly online, and less in real-world relationships. How does it differ for different groups? For example, a college student’s experience with social media is very different from that of an older adult who is likely to have more different kinds of relationships.

Computer systems designers are
eager to add technical capabilities
and features. The social behavior that
emerges from such innovation is not
prescribed in advance with any par-
ticular intent, and the systems might
be modified later to discourage certain
kinds of behavior (such as harassment)
or to add privacy controls. The chal-
lenge for designers is to be more inten-
is possible to test an online system for
the effect it is likely to have on com-
munities that could include thousands,
or millions, of participating social net-
workers.