Be careful what you "Like" ... (social media, data mining, and blatant self-promotion)

I just finished a book called Terms of Service: Social Media and the Price of Constant Connection by Jacob Silverman.  I read books like this as often as I can find them because this is an area where my personal and professional interests intersect.   My library school degree is actually a MA in Information Studies, and my personal interest is tied to the fact that I am an avid consumer of digital information, and a somewhat skeptical user of social media .

My initial reaction, after only the first chapter, was to abandon social media altogether. So I put down the book and deactivated my Facebook account – knowing even as I did so that it would be temporary. Within an hour, my mother (who is not on Facebook) called to ask me why I hadn’t updated her about a family member’s health condition, which had been mentioned on Facebook. I gently reminded her about all the reasons (excuses) I have for not remembering that sort of thing  (work, stress, being the daughter of my father) and sort of implied that if she felt she was entitled to that information, maybe she should create her own account. And then, feeling guilty, I reactivated mine.

However, there are many reasons I do intend to maintain my social media accounts. I have friends and family all over the world and I like seeing their photos and updates and getting mini-glimpses into their lives. I like the filtering options on Instagram that allow me to take pictures of my dog and edit the image so that her adorableness resolves on the screen instead of appearing like a blacked-out, dog-shaped hole.

And I do this for professional reasons. Because “everyone else does it” and I work in a job that requires knowing and understanding everything I can about meeting the informational needs of our customers.  And maintaining a searchable web presence is, in itself, evidence of technical capabilities that future employers might require.

So, I’m not going to give up social media – and that isn’t what this book is trying to achieve. Instead, it’s just raising awareness of the personal and commercial effects of a society intent on documenting, preserving, promoting, and sharing its private life.

If you want to know about all the ways social media can negatively affect a person individually, there’s a wealth of information out there (including this book). There are also a lot of resources about protecting your online reputation, or increasing your social status, attracting more followers or friends etc. 

The reason I’m writing this is because of a key point of which I wasn’t fully aware and I think it’s worth pointing out.

Most social media sites have embedded widgets across the internet to enable what Facebook calls “frictionless sharing,” which means I can hit a like or a heart or +1  button and share whatever I’m looking at with my friends and followers (in fact, after I post this blog, I’m going to hit that button to share it with you). 

Sharing this information serves two purposes. The most obvious is that I can easily share something I’ve created, or discovered and found interesting or funny or meaningful. It says to my group of friends “Hey! This is cool” or “This is what I believe” or “This is weird/outrageous/unacceptable.”  “This!” gives you, my friend, a little more insight into me – as a person. And if you agree, you’ll like it too and validate me. And if you don’t like it, you’ll disagree and we’ll have a conversation, or you’ll roll your eyes, or at worst, you’ll block me, or something.  Whatever …

But the second role this “frictionless sharing” plays is that each click of a button adds another data point into a file that is kept about me, my interests, preferences, personal beliefs & biases – and that information is then used (and often sold to interested third parties) to target me for specific advertising campaigns, or to filter what displays in my various feeds. If I like a post a friend has shared about an underdog presidential candidate, I’ll start seeing more posts like that. And if I get tired of seeing videos about dogs, I can click a button in Facebook and say “Show me less about this” and then Facebook will know I hate dogs. Everything I like or ignore or even hover the mouse over but decide not to click is registered by these sites and then fed into algorithms that determine the content I see every day.

And what I click on could then be used, along with my profile picture, to promote an advertisement that shows up in your feed. When you see a post that refers to something I liked, (it could be a mutual friend’s status update or a band or a business), the information is presented in a frame as an insight into my personality, when it’s actually being used as an endorsed advertisement.

I’m not saying this is inherently bad – but people need to be aware that by engaging in these posts by clicking, liking, sharing etc. you are doing more than showing approval or insight to your friends, you are also participating in widespread market research. These social media sites and third party business and corporations are capitalizing on what used to be one of the most reliable and valued forms of local advertising – “word of mouth.” Think about it – when we’re looking for a mechanic, or a hairstylist, or a lawyer, we ask our friends first… and often, their endorsement means even more than a 5 star review by an anonymous or unknown person.

I’ve always known that what I “like” on Facebook  (or external sites) displays to my friends, and I try to be selective about what I click – because my relatively small group of friends is actually very diverse. It includes family members, friends from kindergarten and college, and former, current and potential coworkers … not to mention people I actually want to impress. This is why my social media activity is limited almost entirely to self-deprecating jokes and pictures of my dog (who I hate*).

I recognize that many people use their social media accounts to actively promote political ideologies, spread awareness of important civil rights issues, affirm religious and spiritual beliefs, or to seek support and validation in times of emotional crises. This is one of the more positive features of social media – the fact that it allows people to form communities and support networks across a broader spectrum than they might find locally or in real life. 

The point I'm trying to make (and the point of this excellent book) is that we need to keep in mind that while we’re sharing our lives and likes with each other, we are freely contributing to a data collection system that uses the information we share in ways we may never have intended. And we need to be aware that the information and advertisements displayed in our feeds and sidebars, especially that which appears to have been endorsed by our friends, is an unreliable and incomplete representation of our interests and personalities. Just like everything else we see or say on the Internet.

(*I don't actually hate dogs. Except for this one:)

I worry about Intellectual Property Theft

This is going to be a fun topic. I associate holding one's tongue with keeping something secret. What examples can I give of keeping a secret without failing to keep the secret? We have a lot of family reading these essays, and the biggest secrets and dramas often happen within families.  To avoid any potential for hurt feelings,  what I’m going to do is tell you about something without telling you what the something is, that way the conundrum can be revealed without giving away the bank. You’ll see what I mean.

The conference I attended in San Diego ended last Sunday, and then I stayed with Kelly (as I‘ve mentioned). During that time I came up with 3 truly brilliant ideas – ideas that will make money and contribute to the information profession. I’m serious. These ideas will be revolutionary. But I need to do some research. The ideas are so great they might already have been invented. If they have, then too bad, but I will purchase one from whoever did the inventing because now that I’ve thought about it, these new things are going to be absolutely indispensible. And if my great ideas haven’t already been invented, then I am going to need to find a partner because I do not have the technical skills to create the prototypes. It is also possible that my great ideas are impractical or impossible to create in real life.

 I may have seen The Social Network a few times too many. I have relationships with people who have the skills to construct my great ideas, who might make excellent business partners, but what if they turn out to be the worst business partners in the world? It’s not a good idea to mix money with friendship. But we could be the next great partnership, like all the other great partnerships everyone could get rich and contribute to the profession at the same time. Or something like that. I am conflicted.  I just don’t want to be the person who’s sits around bitter and telling everyone that I was actually the inventor of “The Greatest Library Related iPhone App ever” (TM).

I think I’ve already figured out what I’m going to do. I’ll do some research, sketch out the instructional designs, and objectives and find out if they would work. Then I will approach my friends with contracts and confidentiality and non-competition clauses.  Worst case scenario, I have to take classes and learn to do the coding and data base construction myself. It will take longer but I should learn how to do it anyway.

So, I would say the conference was a success. I remember after the prison library conferences, I would always return to work so excited and full of ideas, and over time the place would wear down my enthusiasm, but I always got the most ideas after spending time with colleagues.  Eventually I may reveal the great ideas, after  I've determined if they are viable. I once came up with a plan to raise children using only sock puppets and I told everyone about it before I'd fully thought it through. Big mistake.

 

*This post was originally published at The Daily Theme on January14, 2011

Color(ful Vocabulary) Antipathies

I’ve been wracking my brain trying to think of colors that I dislike so much that I avoid them, but even neon colors (which I extremely dislike) look all right in certain contexts – like Las Vegas (which I also dislike). So I googled this title, and aside from being proud that The Daily Theme was number three on the listed results, I was surprised to discover this expression has racial and sociological connotations. So Kelly suggested this could seg nicely into a comment on the recent Huck Finn scandal over the replacement of certain words in a new edition intended for children.

We were driving to a grocery store yesterday when my phone beeped with an incoming email and when I checked I saw that it was my daily update from the ALA’s discussion group on LinkedIn. “The Librarians,” I said, turning to Kelly, “are Angry!”
 

Censorship, which is what this revision is being called, is one of several issues librarians are ethically bound to have an opinion on (another is Privacy).  However, a well-reasoned argument on either side of this issue is difficult to achieve when the forum restricts character length (as in Twitter, which is where some of this conversation is taking place), and people react from a hardwired emotional place. And actually, this emotional reaction is what the publishers of the new edition are trying to avoid from young students of color.

From the censorship angle, I just have this to say: we are not being called to burn all former editions of Huck Finn. No one is trying to erase the original text – this new edition everyone is so fired up about is not even the first abridged version to censor the racist lingo. See here a Junior Classics edition published 12 years ago.  I am no fan of censorship in any situation, and if and when I have children, I will make sure they read the original version once they have reached an appropriate age. But like me, they also will never be able to understand the genuine devastation and outrage provoked by that word.

In the course of our discussion, Kelly and I realized that as two highly educated, middle-class, white women our ability to rationally discuss the context and literary value of the n-word was exactly the sort of ‘white privilege’ we heard Black scholars rail against in college. We do not have emotional reactions to this term because we have NO IDEA what it’s like to be systematically oppressed and subjugated (no matter what we might claim when our feminist hats are on) and to claim a place in a discussion of the appropriate use of the N-word is arrogant and disrespectful. 

*This post was originally published at The Daily Theme on January 12, 2011

On Card-Indexing One's Friends

In the olden days in Europe and also in America,  a person of a certain class had a calling cards, which he would deliver to another person’s house as a way of introducing himself. Then, if that second person found the first person to be agreeable and wished to pursue an acquaintanceship, he would send a servant over to the first person’s house with his own card. I’m not sure how it was decided whether a person was agreeable or not based on just a name on a card. Maybe discreet enquiries were made. Upon receipt of the other person’s card, the first person may now visit the second person in their home during certain hours. The cards were kept in a fancy case, called the card case. 

After a brief visit and conversation, then each person added notes on the back of the other's card -- some personal attributes and information which would aid them in planning the seating chart in the event of a dinner party. If a person was tipsy at 2:00 in the afternoon, then that person would not be seated next to the tee-totalling wife of the Member of Parliament. It was very important, at dinner parties, that people were seated in such a way to aid conversation and to avoid boredom and offense. That is why married couples were not seated together.

                  
Now in these modern times, we do not have calling cards. Some (employed) people have business cards and those are handed out at parties or accident scenes;  perhaps one might get a card in return but there is not the expectation there once was attached to the exchange. One is not expected to visit the address on the business card unless one has business to do. They are not designed to facilitate a social network, is what I’m trying to say.

Speaking of social networks, when I was complaining to my mother about not knowing what to write about this topic, she suggested I write about Facebook. She was sort of snooty about it, “I would expect you of all people to have something to say about your experience with Facebook.” So fine, I’ll say something about Facebook.

 Yes, it is a social network, but it is artificial. A person sends a friend request (not unlike a calling card) and if the other person finds it acceptable (after a discreet glance at their public profile), they accept the request. Then they are “friends.” One can “visit” the other’s space, leave messages and invitations to play games, but maintaining this friendship requires isolation rather than integration. A person does not need to leave the house, instead one pushes a few buttons and stares at a screen.
 

The more time a person spends interacting with virtual friends, the less time one has for real dinner parties and actual conversation with interesting people who are not your spouse (if you even have one).

The only other similarity is that some people collect friends as people collected cards in the olden days. In both cases, a person will sit by himself, staring at the friend list or the collection of cards and think “Look how popular I am.”
                 

Sidenote: 

With the exception of the first paragraph, I made up everything in this essay. The analysis of Facebook is my own, therefore also made up. 

 

*This post was originally published at The Daily Theme on December 17, 2010