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media + culture + technologyAbout Me
Nilesh ZachariasThe opinions expressed on this site are exclusively my personal opinions and unless so stated explicitly, they do not represent the views of any past, present or future employer or any institutions and organizations I may be affiliated with.
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The Institute for Quantitative Social Science at Harvard University has been doing some interesting work on what data from social platforms like Twitter tell us about our collective state of mind. Here’s a video they have created, which displays a 24-hour Twitter Mood cycle in the United States.
Visit the Complexity and Social Networks Blog to read more about their work and how to interpret the mood map.
After reading some glowing reviews, a group of friends walk into a new restaurant. Prior to being seated, the first thing they do is pull out their Smartphones and “check-in” their location. 5 minutes later, they’re seated and the menus arrive. Not a word is exchanged but the Smartphones are in action again (checking recommendations on what’s good on the menu). I’m not even going to bother getting into all the updates and photo taking that follows during the meal. I hope you get the picture. Do you see anything wrong with it? Depending on whether you’re a social media bee that’s perpetually buzzing (and loves the addition of geo-location, check-ins and mayorships to the mix) or whether you’re not so eager to broadcast your daily whereabouts, your answer may range from “nothing” to “everything”. I personally am intrigued by the location-based social networking trend, but not impressed enough. In fact, I’ve thought long and hard about the present and future data capabilities of location-based social networks, as well as the privacy implications and potential benefits of social media in general. I do understand why people use and love these services, but I just see no value in it for me yet.
I’m obviously no Luddite. I work for an Internet company, I blog, use Twitter, Facebook, etc. and I love my iPhone (probably a little too much). But I’m also very conscious of the big role these services and devices like the iPhone are beginning to play in my daily life. It’s getting to the point where it sometimes feels like my iPhone is a portable life support system that’s there to feed my insatiable need for real-time information. The more apps I use, the more active I get on social networks, the more irresistible is the urge to pull out my iPhone and check in on my digital life and the ever-expanding ocean of information on the Internet (while checking out of my real world surroundings). Currently, the only saving grace is I can still choose where to draw the line between my daily life and my online participation — I can disconnect or “slow down”. The problem with location-based social networking is that disconnecting is not really a viable option when the very purpose of these services is to blur erase the lines between our offline and online lives.
Another problem with location-based social networking is that all the apparent benefits of a data-driven life could easily turn into a burden, where instead of ever living in the moment, we’re constantly attempting to construct the perfect moment or busy “planning serendipity”. As Aldus Huxley put it so well “Even the best cookery book is no substitute for a bad dinner”. Now Huxley was obviously not talking about location-based social networks and their impact on our perception, but he was right about the fact that we tend to put too much weight on symbols, information and knowledge to the point where we start to believe they are somehow more real than what they stand for. Huxley wasn’t the only one who was concerned about the problem of being overtly influenced by words, knowledge and concepts already established. Jiddu Krishnamurti (a close friend of Huxley) said “Freedom is found in the choiceless awareness of our daily existence and activity”. Krishnamurti’s core philosophy was all about liberating the mind from the burdens of memory and allowing it to appreciate spontaneously of the present moment. We’re quickly moving further away from this concept of freedom because not only do we have complete access to our own memories via the Internet and geo-location based services, but we can also tap into the collective memory and knowledge of our friends and social networks. This is obviously a double-edged sword, because the more you know about the everyone’s thoughts, experiences and whereabouts, the more you are influenced to act based on the information rather than follow your instincts.
This is not only about location-based social networks. Unfortunately, we’re marching towards a world where absolute dependence on data will be commonplace and eventually, we will come to accept that there won’t be a clear separation between the “real” world and the virtual universe of information. The price we will pay is having to manage the impact of knowledge becoming an unnecessary weight on our experiences.
It’s probably a futile effort, but I’d rather stick with spontaneity, live in every moment, experience real coincidences and actually discover new things. A discounted latte is somehow not a compelling enough incentive for me to give that up just yet.
We’re living in interesting times, where media and communications technologies, driven by the Internet, smartphones and social media are bringing about monumental transformations in our lives. Computing power and web-based services continue to grow at a pace that’s practically impossible to keep up with. In the midst of all this innovation (and hype), its great to see platforms and services emerge that are using some of the most talked about technologies to explicitly instrument some good.
Ushahidi (which means “testimony” in Swahili) is one such open-source platform that brings together the power of mobile technology, location-based social media and mapping to crowdsource citizen reporting and response. Ushahidi was built in 2007 with the intention of serving as a website that could collate eyewitness reports during the aftermath of the disputed elections in Kenya. The platform received reports about violence, riots and deaths via e-mail, SMS and Twitter and visualized the data on a map, using the location provided by individuals. The information gathered proved to be timely and incredibly useful to the organizations engaged in crisis response.
Since the Kenyan elections, this innovative platform has been deployed in a number of instances (across the globe), ranging from mapping violence in Eastern Congo, aiding in disaster response and relief efforts associated with the earthquakes in Haiti and Chile, to helping with the Snowmageddon clean up effort in D.C. 
The technology is now being used to track the aftermath of the Oil Spilling into the Gulf of Mexico. An environmental group called the Louisiana Bucket Brigade is using the Ushahidi’s platform to collect user-generated reports on odors in the air, sightings of oil-covered birds that are impacted, damage to property and pleas from fisherman who are losing their livelihood. This real-time reporting is helping aid organizations offer timely assistance to areas that need it the most and is helping paint a grim, yet important long-term picture of the environmental and economic impact of this crisis.
Ushahidi isn’t the only recent example of Crowdsourcing using the Internet being used to actually bring about change in the real world. San Francisco’s Mayor Gavin Newsom recently announced the city’s tree census project called the Urban Forest Map. It’s a crowdsourcing effort to help cities identify how many and what types of trees they have. As the website explains, this information will then help urban foresters and city planners to better manage trees in specific areas, track and combat tree pests and diseases, and plan future tree plantings.
Crowdrise is another interesting new celebrity-backed platform that’s using 
aspects of crowd-sourcing and social networking to allow people to build personalized online fundraising campaigns, using interactive features, points and rewards. The idea seems to be to encourage people to do something meaningful, but stay engaged and have some fun while their at it.
Or consider Every Day One Thing, a brand new Seattle-based startup that uses basic game mechanics to encourage its users to do good. You can “check-in” good deeds and earn points for things like volunteering, gardening, recycling, buying green, etc.
These are just some of the examples I came across. Let’s hope its a sign of a growing trend towards harnessing the power of new technology to not only engage and distract, but also encourage us to participate and act. As Anne Frank famously put it, “How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world”. These words ring even truer in the digital age.
Related Post: Social Media for Social Good
I’ve written previously about the need for a simple volume know-like control panel for controlling information we choose to share via various social platforms on the internet. The basic idea behind this approach is that notions of privacy vary and continue to evolve as personal and social norms and attitudes change. Therefore, it’s important to let individuals manage their own expectations of privacy. Responsible use of data is an empty promise if your users don’t feel confident about the ability to control the flow of their information in an easy and efficient manner. But privacy and control of data is not the only issue that’s causing consumer confusion and drawing the ire of advocates and lawmakers. It’s part of a much bigger issue that’s the source of a lot of the widespread concern about social media.
This core issue is the development and release of social platforms and new features that have the potential of impacting millions of individuals across the world with what appears to be little or no consideration paid to human values. Yes, new technologies are not necessarily value neutral. Batya Friedman and Peter H. Kahn, Jr. first shed light on this important issue in The human-computer interaction handbook.
According to Friedman and Kahn, there are three basic theories about biases in technology:
Value Sensitive design uses the Interactional theory, a tripartite methodology, and emphasis on direct and indirect stakeholders as an approach to designing technology that accounts for human values in a principled and comprehensive manner.
I’m not advocating a detailed research project before developing and launching every new social media system or feature, but here’s an illustrative list of 10 basic questions that should be asked:
If you’re not prepared to ask and answer the above questions before finalizing the design of a social media system or feature (or for that matter any consumer-facing Internet-based product), you better at least have a good communications plan to deal with the PR backlash that will inevitably follow.
Random chat sites don’t seem to be going away any time soon. BLAH Therapy is the latest entrant that’s trying to put its own unique twist to the Chatroulette model. The easiest way to describe BLAH Therapy is that its like Chatroulette, with a specific purpose and no video (for now). You can either choose to be a “Listener” and help another user or be a “Venter” and chat your problems away. The service randomly connects you to a stranger for an anonymous therapy session.
Psychcentral.com tested BLAH Therapy and has a detailed review (with pros and cons).
I’m not sure if this is actually going to turn out to be a useful (and popular) social media site. As the review on Psychcentral points out, you can’t be sure that your chat logs will remain private. Further, BLAH Therapy doesn’t seem to make it clear what they plan to do with the chat logs. Of course, this is probably not going to stop people from using it. But a bigger problem may be that the specific purpose is too limiting and that BLAH Therapy may need to add more features to make it entertaining enough for users to stay engaged.
Time will tell, but for now it seems to be averaging around 300 active users online, which pales in comparison to Chatroulette’s supposed 20,000 active users.
Looks like shrinks don’t have much to worry about. Not yet, anyway
My fundamental gripe with a lot of social media buzz these days is that most of the services that are all the rage are nothing more than entertainment and marketing 
channels. Here’s the basic trend — they all start out simple and stupid, but eventually the popular ones grow into real businesses and start monetizing the rich conversations and user profiles for advertising purposes. The users continue to get entertained and distracted by creating, sharing, commenting, liking, re-tweeting, checking-in, etc. for free and the services attract more ad dollars by waving the carrot of targeted ads. Assuming consumers understand the value exchange (and have adequate control), it’s usually a win-win situation and everyone goes home happy. There’s nothing wrong with that at all. I understand the tremendous economic value, but what about the social value of social media?
Some will argue that most social media platforms are like any other technology or service that can be used for purposes ranging from good, bad to absolutely pointless. Further, there are several real examples of good emerging from all this web 2.0 communication between individuals. Social media is having a positive impact on philanthropy and the nonprofit world and has also proved to be a crucial communication tool in times of political unrest and for disaster management. Further, social media obviously helps broaden our social circles and helps us strengthen existing relationships and establish new ones. I wholeheartedly agree that this could all be good for us in the long run.
So what am I complaining about? I’m not complaining actually, but trying to point out that all this good is really a side benefit of these services and not the core reason why people check their Facebook page every five minutes and tweet 
several times a day. It’s unfortunately pretty obvious that a lot of time spent using such services tends to be fairly pointless and driven largely by the need to be distracted and entertained. Again, that’s perfectly fine in terms of one’s selfish pursuit of happiness. Moreover, everyone else is doing it. But what if you could actually choose a better alternative a few times a day? What if you could actually be distracted (even entertained) by social media and do some good in the world while you’re at it? What if you could harness your free time to make a difference, instead of staring at your iPhone and desperately searching for something witty to say in 140 characters?
Luckily, you don’t have to wonder anymore. Here’s a great article that talks about the following 5 social apps that can save the world!
This New York Times article about the “too much information movement” will probably alarm a lot of people (at least those that don’t follow every new social media trend). But I have good news. Those that avoid these services have nothing 
to fear when it comes to their privacy (for the most part) and those that choose to participate are doing so because they truly believe the benefits outweigh the privacy risks. Over-sharing is not a new phenomenon, but what was missing was a medium to convey the information efficiently to potential receivers. One can argue that the Internet and social networking is leading people to become more comfortable with the idea of broadcasting their lives to friends, family and strangers (and that’s a bad thing). However, without users that are willing participate in this mass information sharing explosion, there would be no YouTube, Facebook, Twitter. Foursquare or Blippy. The question is, why do some people choose to willingly over-share, in spite of the obvious risks involved (limited control over how long such information is retained, who it is shared with and how it is accessed and used)? I think the answer is simple. The one’s that do so have to and need to, because they desperately want to be heard.
In this globalized world which is accelerating the flattening of social and cultural identity, the individual has to struggle to stand out in the crowd of civilization. Social media changes that (at least conceptually). The over-sharers can now be themselves and boast about their generic taste in music, their love for romance novels, their weekend bar-hopping adventures and any other minute piece of information about who they are and what it is that makes each one of them a unique individual. Who cares about people whining about the loss of privacy? They now have control over their personal identity and the way the are perceived by others in the world. They may not be that unique but it must feel good to be handed the control panel of your own personal broadcast channel — your own powerful personal PR machine.
As Freud put it in the book Civilizations and Its Discontents, every individual is driven by an instinctual need to experience pleasure and avoid pain. We collaborate 
with others to form civilizations because it helps this basic selfish drive. When we collaborate with others we have a greater chance of survival and ways to avoid pain caused by external factors (natural elements, other human beings, etc.). However, the dependence created by civilization comes with its drawbacks. Civilization imposes limits on the individual in the interest of the common good. It imposes norms and laws that restrict the uninhibited individual pursuit of happiness. Therefore, although we rely on civilization to protect ourselves from the hostile world we live in; civilization itself causes displeasure because it restricts our individuality and our instincts. It’s a dilemma that even Freud didn’t have good answers too, but he did a great job of clearly articulating the problem.
What does this have to do with over-sharing on the Internet? Think of over-sharing as a little win for the individual — a win against having to consume mass media and be another faceless and passive consumer. The Internet and social media gives you an instant audience to nourish your sense of self, to carve your own identity, to be heard (even if you have nothing important to say) and be in control of how the world at large perceives you. If over-sharing makes millions of people feel better about themselves, if it helps them be heard and form new social connections with like minded over-sharers, if it helps them achieve pleasure an avoid pain, why worry? Why should anyone live unheard and unnoticed? Of course the providers of such services need to offer users with the ability to control the information sharing and not suffer data breaches. But why should we stop anyone from having a voice? Further, when over-sharing becomes the norm in society, many will chose to break away from the herd mentality and maintain their sense of self by curtailing their information sharing habits. It’s an endless cycle and we will do what we have to to meet our fundamental need for individuality. Because without a personal identity, what is the point of privacy? As the saying goes, “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” Admit it, you don’t want to be that tree.
Related Post: Managing the privacy impact of Internet microcelebrity culture
You’ve probably heard the news by now. The Internet (and social media specifically) is making us all attention-seeking wannabe celebrities, killing privacy and giving birth to an age of voyeurism. But how did it come to this?
We sowed the seeds that are leading us to this inevitable end thousands of years go — by developing visual and oral communications mediums such as signs, language and writing (the earliest mediums that provided humans with the means to communicate by storing and transmitting memory and speech outside our bodies). In ancient times, you had to be a king, saint or God to achieve celebrity status, but media and communication technologies, starting with print and later film, radio and TV changed everything by fueling the process of democratization of celebrity culture. Mass media distribution enabled celebrities to emerge amongst numerous sectors of society such as politics, science, academia, sports, etc. Then the Internet arrived and not only did it make the lives of existing celebrities more accessible to the masses, but it also turned passive consumers of media into active producers. Tools like blogging, podcasting, digital photo and video sharing handed out the keys to a new media universe for free and celebrity status became anyone’s for the taking.
In many ways, the allure of celebrity appeals to our basic human need to have a voice, connect with others, be recognized and influence the world around us. Further, the Internet created only one barrier to entry into this new participatory culture — our willingness to disclose our opinions, talents, interests, affiliations, whereabouts and other identifiable information about our private and social lives for the chance to be heard. As Marshall McLuhan accurately pointed out; “Publication is a self-invasion of privacy” and as Internet technologies for creating and transmitting media flourish, mobile devices become the primary communication tool and geo-location services; facial tagging and augmented reality technologies become ubiquitous, no one will truly be able to escape this phenomenon. The outcome will be a world in which everyone is recognized, well-known and observed by groups of people on a daily basis (either due to our direct actions or those of others).
The subsequent broadening of our social spheres and the associated loss of anonymity may lead to benefits such as honesty, transparency, collaboration and
altruism, but it will not come without its negative consequences. We will all struggle to manage our reputation by not only curtailing certain thoughts and actions, but also by paying for reputation management services to help us enforce limits on what others say and share about us. Some will embrace the attention and even try to profit from it, thereby blurring the line between self-expression and commercial behavior. Disputes over intellectual property ownership of media created and collated by the new breed of consumers-turned-producers, as well as claims of deceptive and unfair advertising practices will inevitably follow. In addition, concerns over the mining of our disclosed opinions, talents, interests, affiliations and whereabouts for advertising purposes will not abate, as marketers struggle to combat the rising tide of attention scarcity and audience fragmentation.
Assessing the potential socioeconomic consequences of the democratization of celebrity culture is important, but we must not sidestep the core dilemma between the human need to be heard and our value for privacy. Although certain basic concepts of privacy are shared amongst individuals, cultures and nations, we cannot deny that the notions of privacy vary and continue to evolve as personal and social norms and attitudes change. Hence, we should work to ensure that all media and communication technologies that empower us to create and share also enable us to control the flow of information. This will help us choose our own desired levels of privacy, rather than having multiple confusing standards imposed upon us.
Ideally, we all need a simple volume knob for every piece of data we choose to share, where each level on the knob represents a different level of trust in our social sphere. For example Level 0 would represent the individual itself and every subsequent level could represent a customizable group that is lower in the individual’s trust hierarchy. The levels could range from family, close friends, extended relatives, casual acquaintances, colleagues, trusted brands, unknown followers and then everyone else. If new media and communication technologies allowed us to easily define and implement our own personal codes of privacy in this manner, it would go a long way in helping us prepare for some of the challenges that lie ahead.
In a essay about the death of mainstream pop music, the Scottish artist and writer Nick Currie (a.k.a. Momus) wrote the words “In the future everyone will be famous for fifteen people”. This quote is not only an intelligent play on the famous Andy Warhol quote, “In the future everyone will be world-famous for fifteen minutes”, but is also an accurate reflection of current trends. If the democratization of celebrity culture and the social media explosion are indeed redefining our notions of privacy, we need simple tools to help us balance our needs and values. The power to be heard should be accompanied by the power to control our voices; as we all become Internet microcelebrities, to a potential audience of millions, thousands, hundreds or even fifteen people.
The Social Web
A lot has been written and said about some of the negative impacts of social media that range from privacy concerns to harming children’s brains. These concerns may be valid (I have mine too), but the voluntary loss of privacy that comes with being active on Facebook, Twitter or Foursquare may have some unintended benefits. As blasphemous as this may sound, if you’re really looking for a silver lining here, there is one to be found.
Firstly, no one can deny that the primary driver behind social media participation is still largely our own selfish need to be heard and connected. Aren’t we all just self-promoting narcissists trying to build our corporate or personal brands and the only ‘social’ aspect we care about is the attention we’re getting from others? This is probably true, but the success of social media itself seems to contradict this assumption and is evidence that we all are not only satisfying our selfish needs, but are also providing some value to each others lives. If our primary motivations are purely selfish in nature, how is this even possible? 
I think it has a lot to do with morality and moral intuitions. As psychologist Jonathan Haidt put it so well, “just as our tongues guide us to good foods and away from bad foods, our minds guide us to good people, away from bad people”*. In other words, it may be possible that the reason we thrive (in spite of ourselves) in these new social environments is because we tend to adopt moralistic behaviors that curtail our selfish motivations. I’m no psychologist, but with the exception of a few celebrities, long term social media popularity and success is not only dependent on being interesting and engaging, but also on following some basic moral principles such as not harming others and treating people with respect. In some ways, the more moral you are in your social media behavior, the more likely that you will be heard, appreciated and recognized in today’s crowded social media landscape. Let’s take Twitter as an example — it’s a service that seems to have an unwritten moral code ingrained in concepts like Retweets and the Follow Friday hashtag. It’s these simple manifestations of reciprocal altruism in social media that has in a small way, helped services like Twitter grow at such exponential rates.
Coming back to the issue of privacy, as we make the conscious choice to share more, we as a society are likely to grow more comfortable with blurring the boundaries between our public and private lives. Consequently, we will cope by growing more conscious about how the thoughts we share and actions we perform, whether offline or online may be stored and broadcasted for consumption by others. Managing our own personal brand and reputation will become critical. This combined with the fact that we will form new emotional attachments and connections online, may end up bringing about out a lot of good in us. When you know you’re being watched by people that trust you, aren’t you more likely to be more honest, transparent and respectful? Further, the broadening of our social spheres will be a great incentive for us to collaborate, cooperate and display altruistic behavior with more people than ever before. How can that be a bad thing?
I’m not implying that privacy becomes a non-issue because we will all behave nicely to save face. There’s still a lot of work to be done around establishing the right balance that meets individual notions of privacy. However, I’m just hoping our moral compass continues to play an important role in guiding us through this challenging journey.
