Dit is het vierde bericht van serie van vier met als onderwerp ‘leven in een digitale wereld’. Deze berichten zijn allen onderdeel van het vak ‘living in a digital world’, onderdeel van de track ‘New Media and Communication’, afstudeerrichting van het masterprogramma ‘Communication Studies’. Het door mij gekozen thema bij aanvang van dit vak was ‘het hebben van meer sociale contacten in de digitale wereld’. Aan de hand van de wekelijkse artikelen heb ik gezocht naar verklaringen en zijn er nieuwe vragen bovengekomen. Reacties en / of opmerkingen zijn altijd welkom!
Introduction
To start this reflection, I want to introduce my theme during this course. In my opinion is having more social contacts a great advantage of living in a digital world. A larger social network is in my opinion a great improvement of life because it has advantages for networking, gaining knowledge, and social activities. I am trying to gain more knowledge by reflecting the articles of this week on my theme. Is having more social contacts really an advantage? How did we create the possibilities to create more social contacts? And how do these new digital social contacts compare to face-to-face social contacts?
New information through weak ties
As mentioned by Ling (2008) the confidants with whom individuals discuss important matters fell from 2.94 in 1985 to 2.08 in 2004. This is in my opinion in line with the assumption of Gergen (2002), that the shift from vertical relationships to horizontal relationships leads to a devaluation of relationship depth, and might be seen as a decrease in relationship quality. But doesn’t this development of more, but weaker, contacts has positive opportunities for individuals? Ling (2008) also mentions that weak ties are important, because they allow an efficient flow of information between groups. Also more people can be reached through weak ties, and individuals could be reached with new information, ideas, and inspiration trough weak ties. The conclusion I get from these statements from Ling (2008) and Gergen (2002), is that although creating more, but weaker, ties in a digital world leads to a devaluation of relationship depth, the reversal is the development of more knowledge and a better view of the world. This is because more weaker ties lead to new information, ideas, and inspiration.
Correct representation leads to more social contacts
That getting more and correct information is important, is shown by a point made by Vaidhyanathan (2009). He states that the ‘local culture movement’ has benefited greatly from the opportunity to let different culture groups find each other and reinforce their collective judgments with Google. The ‘local culture movement’ is a representation of the interests of long-unrecognized culture groups which have struggled to claim and sustain identities under the pressure from for example dictatorial nation-states. Google has reinforced the interests of the ‘local culture movement’ with its powerful trends toward localization in search results and thus the customization of knowledge. What does this reinforcement of the ‘local culture movement’ means for creating social contacts and extending your network? As mentioned by Giles (2003) there are two concerns about the portrayal of different social groups in the media, underrepresentation and misrepresentation, where the latter is of the most concern. By giving long-unrecognized culture groups the opportunity to claim and sustain their true identity, and give others the opportunity to reinforce their judgment with Google, misrepresentation is reduced, and individuals get a good impression of the cultural group. For global relationships this would mean that individuals can reduce their behavioral and cognitive uncertainty with correct information about other culture groups. By reducing their uncertainty with the correct information, individuals have minimized their doubts when interacting with others, which makes it easier to form a social relationship.
How quantitative increase could be evidence for qualitative change
Every subject I am talking about so far in this reflection is about quantity and its possible effects. The article of Webster (2006) provides me with an interesting point concerning the quality and quantity of social contacts, although its subject is the information society. As mentioned in my introduction, I make a connection between a great improvement of life and a larger social network, but is this true? Webster (2006) states that a quantitative increase of information and information technologies cannot be seen as evidence for social change, or in other words a qualitative change. When I refer this to my topic, I see that I could have made a wrong assumption by making a connection between a growing social network and a great improvement of life. Reflecting the argument from Webster (2006) on my topic, would mean that the quantitative increase of social contacts cannot be seen as evidence for a qualitative change, like an improvement of life. I showed in the sessions before that the digital world gives a lot of opportunities to create more social contacts, but I haven’t clearly showed yet that his leads to an improvement of life. If there would be any evidence for a qualitative change, I found probably more arguments during this course who state that the quantitative increase leads to a qualitative decrease. For example Gergen (2002) mentioned the shift from vertical relationships to horizontal relationships because of the digital world, which could even lead to a qualitative decrease, to a devaluation of relationship depth. Also the results by Buote, Wood and Pratt (2009) show that for three of the four attachment style groups there was significantly more disclosure with offline friends than with online friends. In my opinion is disclosure a good predictor for relationship quality, so this also shows a qualitative decrease. The most interesting argument for me about this topic comes from Wu and Chiou (2009). Their research about relationship websites showed that the cognitive load may affect users to compromise by sacrificing some of the characteristics they desired when choosing a partner on a dating website. When this concept of cognitive load also counts when creating social contacts, the quantitative increase would lead to a qualitative decrease of social contacts. The statements of Webster (2006) have made me think about quantitative and qualitative change, but in my opinion do the articles of the last weeks show that there is a possibility that quantitative change is evidence for a qualitative change, although not in the direction I thought at the beginning of this course. With this being said, I might have to revise my introduction, and state that a larger social network doesn’t always have to be a great improvement of life and quality.
Online versus offline
In many of the points made in the reflections of last week I made a distinction between offline and online, to see what the differences were, if there was more or less quality in online relationships, but it might be that this distinction is not so clear. In my introduction I talk about comparing digital social contacts to face-to-face social contacts, but to what extend can we talk about a distinction between offline and online? Are online and offline two distinct, and often oppositional, realms? In most of the point made in these reflections I made this distinction, and compared them to each other, but what if we look at it differently? Orgad (2007) states that cyperspace, or the online world, is fundamentally embedded within specific social, cultural and material contexts. With this being said, it would be hard to make a distinction between offline and online, because they influence each other. After reading the article of Orgad (2007), it sounds that the relation between offline and online as bilateral relationship to me. In my opinion is this shown by two research examples given in the article of Orgad (2007). He mentions that online activism studies show that the development, organization, and success of line networks are shaped by offline realities, showing the influence from offline to online. On the other hand, studies of global activism and political action online show how the construction of offline relationships are largely facilitated and influenced by their online activities, showing the influence from online to offline. To me this raises the question if we should not compare online with offline, but look for relations between online and offline, and how they could enhance each other. To some extend this is already what I did in earlier reflections, by for example showing that individuals with a fearful attachment style have better opportunities to initiate relationships in the online world. As mentioned by Orgad (2007), individuals who meet partners online often losing their interest in chatrooms and even stop visiting them, after they had taken their relationship offline. Online communication became frustrating and lost its relevance. This example shows that the online world gives opportunities to individuals to easily meet other people, but that meeting offline is a necessary step to take the relationship to the next level. In other words, it is shown that online life cannot be investigated as an independent concept, but should be seen as a part of the global world, where the intersections and connections between online and offline are investigated. Orgad (2007) states that it could be useful to abandon the online-offline terminology, and talk instead of spaces and processes of mediation. We should look at what happens between the online and offline, or more generally between technology and society. Reflecting this on my theme, makes me revisit my introduction, where I ask the question how these new digital contacts compare to face-to-face social contacts. With the article of Orgad (2007) in mind, a better question would be how the digital world en new opportunities to contact others influences or existing social network.
Conclusion
The conclusions I get from these articles reflected on my theme, are in my opinion very important for my theme. First conclusion is that the shift from vertical to horizontal as mentioned by Gergen (2002) also has an advantage in the way of more weaker ties, because they allow for an efficient flow of information between groups. Second, Misrepresentation can be reduced because of new digital opportunities like for example Google, and this could lead to a correct judgment about each other, as a basis for a social relationship.
Third, that my introduction is maybe not the best way to describe the field of social relations or networks, is shown by the article of Webster (2006). It is not a logical assumption that a quantitative increase also leads to a qualitative increase. And fourth, the article of Orgad (2007) shows me that research in this field maybe should not focus on the distinction between online and offline, but more on what happens between offline and online.
References
Buote, V.M., Wood, E. & Pratt, M. (2009). Exploring similarities and differences between online and offline friendships: The role of attachment style. Computers in Human Behavior, in press.
Gergen, K. J. (2002). The Challenge of absent presence. In: Perpetual Contact. Mobile
Communication, Private Talk, Public Performance (pp. 227-242). Eds. J. E. Katz and M. Aakhus. Cambridge University Press.
Giles, D. (2003). Media Psychology. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers.
Ling, R. (2008). Chapter 2: ICT and Tension between Social and Individual Impulses. In: New Tech, New Ties. How Mobile Communication is Reshaping Social Cohesion (pp. 23-41). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Orgard, S. (2007). Chapter 22: The Interrelations between online and ofline: Questions, Issues and Implications. In: The Oxford Handbook of Information and Communication Technologies (pp. 514-536). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Vaidhyanathan, S. (2009). Another Chapter: the many voices of Google. The Googlization of Everything. How one company is disrupting culture, commerce and community and why we should worry. Obtained at December 10, 2009 from http://www.googlizationofeverything.com/2009/06/another_chapter_the_many_voice.php
Webster, F. (2006). The Information Society Revisited. In: Handbook of New Media (pp. 443-458). London: Sage Publications Ltd.
Wu, P. & Chiou, W. (2009). Rapid communication. More options lead to more search and worse choices in finding partners for romantic relationships online: An experimental study. CyberPsychology & Behavior, 12(3).
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