Archive for November, 2010
Facebook and other social-networking sites subsist on information, though not just any information. These sites have an insatiable appetite for the intimate details of their users’ lives. In fact, your personal information is a sine qua non for social-networking sites on two levels: 1.) People, primarily, use the Web to learn about the people and [ READ MORE ]
We’re not living fully in our lives. We’re living a little bit in our lives and a little bit in our Facebook lives. Sherry Turkle has never failed to be a provocative and insightful theorist of human-technology interaction, but on this point, I could not disagree more. Unfortunately, Turkle continues to reify the false dichotomy [ READ MORE ]
Rather than compiling my own charts this week, I have gathered a number of figures created by the Pew Internet & American Life Project that address in the US. This first chart shows that it was only in 2008 that 50% of adults in America first had broadband access at home. These data might not [ READ MORE ]
This wonderful infographic was published last year in The Visual Miscellaneum, and has recently been posted online. I thought the Cyborgology readers might appreciate a link[ READ MORE ]
Here’s an interesting interview with Alice Marwick about how the “long tail” of the Internet the has reconstituted fame as a localized or “micro” phenomenon. Contrary to the point made by Marwick, I think the important question is not whether will we get fifteen minutes of fame nor whether we will be famous to fifteen [ READ MORE ]
While we do not necessarily use the term “cyborg” in the way Donna Haraway used it in her famous 1985 “Cyborg Manifesto,” Haraway’s work is of great importance to many of the topics covered on the Cyborgology blog. As I see it, the primary takeaway from Haraway is the existence of a recursive relationship between [ READ MORE ]
The Pew Internet & American Life Project has just released new figures on the use of what they are calling “location based” or “geosocial” services (e.g., Foursquare, Gowalla, or Facebook Places). These services encourage social interaction through the sharing of location-based information. Usage patterns break down along some interesting lines. I have taken the liberty [ READ MORE ]
Because I am usually trapped in the Sociology Department’s data dungeon on Wednesdays, I have decided to establish a recurring series of posts that discuss new trends or data. Last week, I compiled some data from a 2005 Pew study to explore whether college students are using Online dating. I’ve now replicated that chart for [ READ MORE ]
A colleague, Zeynep Tufekci, and I were having a friendly debate about whether college students are using sites focused specifically on online dating or whether they are using Facebook and other more general social networking sites in lieu of online dating sites. I compiled some data from the Pew 2005 online dating survey. As you [ READ MORE ]
The term “cyberbullying” is frequently used to describe hurtful behaviors occurring via communication technologies. But why distinguish “cyber” bullying from other forms of bullying? Perhaps it is partly because, when thinking of bullying, we tend to envision physical violence, something impossible to accomplish over the Web. Perhaps it is because the Web allows for new [ READ MORE ]
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