reBlog from socialmediaphilippines.com: Spending Time on Social Media

I found this fascinating quote today:

As Chris Brogan puts it, time management is important if you don’t want to get lost in your social media work. Set a certain amount of time for your strategy and stick to it. That way, you have time enough for other things that you need to do.socialmediaphilippines.com, Spending Time on Social Media, Dec 2009

You should read the whole article.

When was the last time you heard them say...

Some of you might recognize the title of this entry from the Stevie Wonder song, "These Three Words." The song, actually, covers many of the same concepts that i'm talking about: intimacy, interpersonal relationships, relational development--not to mention it's one of the best songs in history from a musical legend!

But progressing to the point for today. The question that has prompted this inquiry is:

How are social networks affecting face-to-face interactions and relationships?

Now, of course this isn't a new question. In fact, the idea that technology would threaten some of the fundamental constructs of society can be traced throughout history. This particular question sprung to the surface after a conversation I had in which someone told me that they seldom responded to messages on Myspace and Facebook, which I thought was odd, because that's my preferred way of communicating (don't judge me!)

The communication scholar I'm highlighting in this entry is James Honeycutt. Honeycutt built upon relational development theories that began to take shape in the 1970's. In 1993, Honeycutt proposed a conceptual breakthrough: He proposed that it wasn't disclosure that lead to increased intimacy in interpersonal relationships, it was the meaning assigned to these disclosure events by the parties involved.

This is pretty revolutionary when we stop and process it for a moment. Allow me to recast this concept in a different scenario: Imagine that someone your dating tells you they previously dated someone of the same sex; this situation could go several different ways. Perhaps it violates your expectations of a potential companion (and there's a theory that addresses that), or maybe you applaud the courage that someone demonstrates in telling you something so personal, so you in turn feel a deeper level of intimacy--this is all relative to the meaning that is placed on the message, not the disclosure of the message.

So what's this have to do with communicating via social networks?

Well, as previously stated, my friend mentioned that he doesn't rely on communicating with people through social media channels, and what became increasingly apparent in that conversation was that it was because he interpreted the use of communicating with people by way of social media to be impersonal. In this case, the mode of communication is assigned meaning, a meaning that, to him, suggested a lack of importance of the message. Interestingly, it had never occurred to me that there was a distinct difference between communication over the phone and communication over the Internet. Now to be fair, I do understand that relationships grow when the time spent using "rich" communication channels increases (i.e, face-to-face, telephone)but I've always been more concerned with the clarity of the message rather than the transmission.

So here's the conclusion: Social media is awesome! It serves a very essential purpose in the grand scheme of communication. However, there are times when someone needs to hear you say, "I love you!"

Check out How the Social Web Destroys Traditional Marketing - Articles - Baekdal.com

Hi,

I want you to take a look at: How the Social Web Destroys Traditional Marketing - Articles - Baekdal.com 

(Internet) Age Old question: Internet relationships...better?

Indeed, a question as old as the first transmission of the first data bytes between computer terminals: can relationships be built, and sustained via digital interaction?

In a study₍₁₎ on communication apprehension (the tendency to become nervous in face-to-face interaction), researchers Michelle Mazur and Ryan Burns studied how communication apprehension either increases or decreases when people "meet" online. The study examined people who had met their romantic partners online, and measured their general level of communication apprehension, introversion (shyness), and interdependence (how connected they were with their partners).

The study revealed that among the people who were generally apprehensive about communicating face-to-face, their relationships online had a high level of interdependence. Among people who are more shy, their online relationships were not particularly interdependent; these type of people tend to maintain independence within their relationships in general.

So what's the point? Of course the debate continues, even among scholars, whether or not relationships between people are affected by the increasing amount of time spent communicating online (and by extension, other modes), versus face-to-face contact--the jury's still out on that one! But what we are definitely sure of is that people are initiating and maintaining relationships using online channels.

Might be important to consider the next time you see a hot person online that "in real life" you might be interested in!




_{1. "Perceptions of Relational Interdependence in Online Relationships: The Effects of Communication Apprehension and Introversion. Communicaiton Research17(4), 2000.}

So what the hells' been up with you?

I know, I know, that's probably the question if you were one of the exclusive (READ: one of five) people who have had the privilege of reading my blog--especially since the last time there was an entry was over a year ago; And despite it being ridiculously overdue--good things come to those who wait! But let's get some housekeeping out the way first:

What else I've been up to

As I'm sure several of you know, TIME'S ARE HARD!! The primary reason I haven't been updating like I should is that I've been working and attempting to complete the last leg of my college-tour; as in the tour of classes I have to take before I can exit stage left.

In the meantime though, I actually had a few great opportunities. I interned for a blog How Legit, that was a great experience. I became acquainted with The Web Start-up, learned some pretty great things in SEO, page analytics, and all that great technical stuff that'll make an online marketing maven of me!

Shortly after that, I had another internship with Change.org; similar stuff, honing my social marketing chops, networking with some great people, etc. I recommend to anyone, get as much experience as you can--cliche, I know, but invaluable none the less!

I just wanted to provide a synopsis of my year in review. The most important thing I wanted to bring up was that If you're following me anywhere else (i.e Twitter, FB, Digg) my names there are all the same, Cre8tv Rec (well, mostly the same.)

What's new on the menu

So first, by virtue of me knowing more, I can write more--AWESOME!! I also plan to attempt to expand the scope of my blog to incorporate communication phenomena from sources other than social networking sites, but that's kind of on the back-burner (maybe of another stove!) But rest assured, I'm definitely back on the horse. I guess I can see where Green Day was coming from--now that September ends, it's time to be woke up!

Stay tuned friends and foes...

The evolution of networking: How Legit

Im back, after a long but uneventful Labor Day weekend. I think that it was this break that has inspired my latest entry. I had an uninterrupted opportunity to browse the web and explore several sites that I had previously planned on visiting in a systematic pattern (which I probably will still attempt to do--for the sake of classification!)

So among my latest discovery is a site called Howlegit.com. The concept is not exceptionally unique, but it does allow the user to interface with the content in a way that, up to now, has not been seen before.

In a nutshell, the user decides whether the content is accurate or "legit" or whether or not its hype. Its definitely appropriate that this format would be debuted in an entertainment website; after all, other than politics no other information category seems to be more convoluted and misdirected.

Whats interesting is that this seems to be the primary intent of most social bookmarking, and social news sites--to provide access to the most information, unfiltered and allow the user to decide what they feel is relevant. The beauty of this site is that it provides a platform to discuss a particular category; compared to other sites, the focus is very narrow. The exhaustive nature of most sites can be overwhelming, unfortunately, but sites with a specific focus tends to allow users to peruse through the content and be able to keep it in context. The site is far from perfected, but as the next step in the use of social networking to access information, I believe we might be witnessing a developing trend.

Today i'm looking at folksonomy. Ineed, the word does seem to connote something reminiscent of that thing we use to hold dear in America, but which has since seem to become a figment of our imaginations. This, however, is far from what a folksonomy is.

A conjuction of the words 'folk' and 'taxonomy,' a folksonomy is a term used to describe classification and categorization on the web. Most users familiar with sites like Digg, Reddit and others would immediately be able to relate with this concept. The rise of social bookmarking as a way to disseminate the incomprehensible amount of the data on the web has become exponentially popular. There is really no better way to have the internet take some shape and become something of relevance. Anyone who has spent some time on search engines can empathize with the frustation that can occur when you're looking for something specific and the search engine brings up web pages that have no relevance, but because the word appears is among the first ten web pages you see.

A site like Digg allows users to rate how much they like a website, and subsequently it can become popular if enough users agree on it's relative value. This reminds me alot of a concept I learned in one of my first communication classes about the semantic trianle. In a nutshell, a word is assigned to an object, it is agreed upon by the majority, and it comes to symbolize that object: arbitrary, abstract, and ambiguous are the terms we used to describe a word. The same applies to what makes a page on digg popular; the majority agree that a web page has value--arbitrary, the web pages' relevance to the digg community is difficult to discern--abstract, what makes it popular is the fact that people find meaning in it differently--ambiguous.

This, i'm sure, even qualifies as an abstract interpretation of what a folksonomy is. There may be a more appropriate theory that explains the mechanics of social bookmarking, but I thought I would just introduce this concept to our ongoing discussion.

Feel free to bookmark it if you like!